A Series of Moments
by midwestgirl10
Summary: This takes place after Season 3. It will be a series of moments that strengthen the friendship between Walt and Vic. The chapters will alternate perspectives.
1. Moment 1

_**Okay, so the idea behind this "story" is that it's not necessarily a story, but instead a series of moments. As I find myself thinking about what the writers will think up for Season 4 of the show, I keep dreaming up little moments that I would love to see happen. So that's really all that these are, moments in Walt and Vic's relationship that I could see happening. They'll alternate between both perspectives, and they won't necessarily be back to back as far as time is concerned.**_

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**Vic**

I'm driving down the road, more like flying, with both the lights and sirens on. I'm not sure what the hell I'll find once I get there; Branch was talking a mile a minute when he called my cell a few minutes ago. The only phrases that I could really make out were, "I shot him" and "I'm his only son." I should probably call Walt, but I want to see what's going on first before I bother him at home.

When I get close, I see Branch standing in the middle of the road waving his arms in the air. He's covered in blood, but the way that he's moving assures me that it's not his.

I slam on my brakes when I get closer to him and hop out of the car. "Branch, what the hell happened?"

"I shot him, Vic. I had to."

I look around for another person, but I don't see anyone. "Who? Branch, who did you shoot?"

"My dad." He starts walking around his truck and I see Barlow lying on the ground, covered in blood. His eyes are wide as he stares up at us, struggling to breathe.

"What the… Branch! What did you do?!"

His voice is softer now. "He pulled his gun on me, but I shot him first. I already called an ambulance."

I kneel down and check Barlow's pulse. It's there, but it's not very strong. The ambulance better get here fast.

"Why did he pull his gun on you?"

"I found out that he was behind Walt's wife's murder."

I jerk my head in Branch's direction. You what?

I can hear the sadness in his voice now. "He paid for the whole thing, Vic."

I don't even know what to say to that. "Jesus Christ," is the only thing that I can muster.

I put pressure on Barlow's wound, hoping that will help stop the bleeding a little bit until the paramedics get here. Where the hell are they?

Not more than a minute later they come racing down the road, followed closely by a familiar, old rusted Bronco.

"You called Walt?"

"Yeah." He nods his head solemnly.

"You go talk to him. I'll deal with the medics."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. He needs to hear this from you."

I explain the whole situation to the paramedics as they work at loading Barlow into the ambulance. He's still conscious, but he's not talking. Once they get him loaded up they ask if I'm riding along.

"Uhh…" I glance back at Branch who's still talking to Walt. "Branch, do you wanna ride?"

He looks over briefly and nods his head. A few moments later he gives Walt a pat on the shoulder and jogs toward us.

"Do you want me to go with you?"

"No, it's okay."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Go talk to Walt."

I look back at Walt, who's standing in the middle of the street staring off into the distance. I can't even imagine what's going on in his head right now.

"Okay. I'll meet you at the hospital soon."

They shut the doors and drive off towards town. I turn and make my way over to Walt.

"Walt?" I say as I approach him.

He doesn't respond, or even looks in my direction. I'm not sure if he didn't hear me or if he's just ignoring me.

I try again, "Walt!" A little louder this time.

He jerks his head towards me, but doesn't say anything.

He looks around for a few seconds and then walks over to the driver's side of the Bronco.

"Hey, wait."

He opens the door but sits sideways on the seat, so he's not all the way in the car. I walk over and stand in front of him.

"Talk to me, Walt."

He looks up at me and makes eye contact for a few moments, before his eyes drift back down. He reaches forward and grabs one of my hands that was covered in blood. I wiped most of it off on a towel but you can still see traces of it.

"Is this his blood?"

"Yes."

He takes my hand and rubs it with both of his. He doesn't say anything for about a minute or so, and when he finally looks up I see tears forming in his eyes.

"It's my fault."

"No-"

"He killed her to just to hurt me," he says as he bows his head, bringing my hand up to his face and sobbing into it.

I know there aren't any words that I can say to comfort him right now, so I just lean forward and put my other arm around him and pull him forward into my chest. The agony that he's shaking with is more than I can handle, and I spend the next couple minutes consoling him while fighting off tears of my own. The tears win in the end, and they're streaming down my face when he pulls away.

"I'm so sorry, Walt."

He stares back at me for a moment before reaching over and wiping a few of my tears away with his thumb.

He doesn't say 'thanks,' but he nods his head instead and gives a small, sad smile.

He pauses for another moment before he speaks again. "We should probably head to the hospital," he says as he releases my hand like he just realized he was still holding it.

"Are you sure you're up for that?"

"No," he admits. "But we should go anyway… for Branch."

Now there's the Walt I'm familiar with. He only allowed himself to grieve for about two minutes before turning his attention somewhere else.

I nod, understanding that if he wanted to talk more he would. "Okay. I'll follow you there," I say, turning to head to my truck.

I'm always following you.


	2. Moment 2

_**I'm so glad you guys liked the first chapter/moment. Here's one from Walt's perspective now… not the same moment, and not immediately following the previous one.**_

* * *

**Walt**

I'm sitting in my office on a Wednesday night, finishing up some paperwork before I go home. It's almost 8 o'clock and I'm hungry. I sent everybody else home about two hours ago; it's been a long week, and I figured everyone could use the rest.

Ever since Branch shot Barlow, the emotions around here have been high. Barlow is going to make it, but he's still in the hospital. I'm not sure how Branch is doing, to be honest. He's been really quiet, not wanting to talk about the whole incident. Barlow will eventually be arrested for arranging Martha's murder; maybe Branch will be able to move forward then. I'm still working on that part myself.

I grab my hat and coat and decide to head out for the night. I'll cover dispatch on the radio at the cabin. As I'm exiting the office door, I'm surprised to see Vic coming up the stairs.

She looks just as startled to see me. "Hey… I didn't figure you'd still be here."

"I was trying to finish up some paperwork." I glance down and notice that she's carrying a duffle bag.

I can tell that she sees me looking at her bag but she doesn't acknowledge it.

"What are you doing back here?"

She pauses briefly, like she's trying to decide whether or not to tell me the truth or to make up an excuse. "I was trying to wait until everybody was gone."

Another pause.

"I'm gonna sleep on one of the cots."

"Why are you sleeping here?"

She shoots me a look that tells me I'm asking a stupid question.

"Is Sean at home?"

She nods solemnly. "He's packing. He leaves in a couple days."

"And you don't want to sit at home." I nod in understanding. I should have known.

"Not really." She says as she shakes her head and heads for the office door.

"Come on." I say as I head down the stairs.

I hear her stop in her tracks. "What?"

"My couch is at least a little more comfortable than those cots in there." I can sleep almost anywhere, but even I have to admit those cots aren't that nice to sleep on.

She's silent for a moment. "Are you sure?"

I stop on the stairs and look back at her. "Unless you wanted to be alone?"

She shrugs her shoulders a little. "Not necessarily."

I give her a small smile and gesture towards her, "C'mon," before walking the rest of the way down the stairs.

I'm about to hop in the Bronco when my stomach growls.

"Did you eat?" I call over to her as she walks to her truck.

"No, I haven't been that hungry lately," she admits.

"Why don't you call and order a pizza, have it delivered to the cabin."

Without arguing she pulls out her phone and flips through it looking for the number. Once she has the phone up to her ear she yells back at me.

"What kind do you want?"

"Whatever you like."

I can see her face glare even from across the street.

"You need to eat, Vic. Plus, I like everything." I smile over at her before I get and drive off.

We eat our dinner and drink a few beers mostly in silence. It's not really an uncomfortable silence, I think it's just that neither of us has anything we feel like talking about. I figure she doesn't want me to ask about Sean, and she probably figures that I don't want to talk about Barlow, which is correct.

Vic insists on sleeping on the couch, even after I offer to trade her places. I knew she wouldn't take me up on it, but I asked anyway. I take a quick shower before climbing into bed, and it doesn't take me long to fall asleep once my head hits the pillow.

At some point in the middle of the night I'm woken up by something. I'm not sure if I heard a noise or anything specific, but I open my eyes and I see Vic standing in the middle of the room.

"Vic, is everything okay?" I sit up halfway and stare up at her.

I can't see her face very well in the darkness, but when she responds her voice is shaky, like she's been crying.

"Everything's fine." She pauses for a moment before she speaks again. "Can I sleep in here?"

"Sure, of course." I start to get up and head to the living room.

She holds her hands up motioning for me to stop. "No, you stay."

She climbs in on the other side of the bed and pulls the covers up over her body.

I hesitate for a moment as I sit on my side of the bed and stare down at her. "Vic, I'm not sure…"

"I just need you to stay there… please."

Right now I think I'd do just about anything she asked me to in order to get rid of the pain in her voice. I lie back down and put my hands behind my head, wondering if maybe I should get up and put a shirt on.

I hear Vic sniffle several times as we both lie here in silence. After a couple of minutes, she scoots her body closer to mine, without saying a word, and kind of curls herself into the fetal position. She's still not touching me, but she's close enough that I can feel her warm breath on my side.

I'm very aware of the fact that Vic is the only other person to sleep in this bed with me since Martha passed. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I can't change anything about it now. I lie here in silence as I listen to her breathe in and out. After a couple of minutes, the sniffles have stopped and her breathing is slower.

As I try to ignore the fact that my beautiful, not quite divorced deputy is curled up next me, I close my eyes and drift off to sleep.


	3. Moment 3

_**Okay, so a few of you have actually said that you wished I was doing these "moments" in chronological order so that it would continue from the last scene... well, you're in luck! I had actually already written this one before you requested it :) There may be more back to back moments later, but most will have time lapses. Like some of you, I wanted the last moment to continue, so I wrote it that way. Only here it continues from Vic's perspective :) Enjoy!**_

* * *

**Vic**

When I wake up in the morning, I'm curled up against Walt with my head resting slightly on his chest. I look up to see if he's awake, which he isn't. I sit up slowly, trying not to wake him because I don't think I can deal with his awkwardness this early in the morning. I'm grateful that Walt just let me be last night. It was dark and I couldn't see his face, but I'm sure he turned ten different shades of red when I crawled into his bed in the middle of the night. I just wanted to be close to someone, that's all. These past months at home with Sean have been lonely, even when he's actually been there. I needed to be next to someone, even if it was only for one night, and even if it was with my boss.

I'm able to crawl out of the bed without waking him up, thank God. I close the bedroom door gently and tip-toe out to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. While it's brewing, I grab my uniform from my duffle bag on the couch and just change right there in the living room. I don't want to have to go home and see Sean before heading into the office.

I rummage through Walt's cabinets to find a to-go mug for some coffee, and also for a pad of paper to write him a note.

_Thank you. Sorry if that was awkward. V._

I leave the note in front of the coffee maker, fill up the mug and head out the door.

Work goes by just like any other day, and surprisingly Walt doesn't act weird around me after last night. He actually doesn't mention anything about it. Maybe he's got too much else on his mind with the whole Barlow incident that he's not even worried about me.

I peek my head into his office before I leave for the day. "See you tomorrow, Walt."

He looks up from his paperwork and simply nods his head. "Goodnight, Vic."

I don't want to go straight home so I head out to the Red Pony for dinner, and to waste a couple of hours. When I finally get to the house, I find Sean packing in the kitchen.

"Surprised to see you here," he mutters as he loudly thumps a glass plate into a cardboard box.

Jesus. I was already bracing myself for a fight after not coming home last night, but I figured he'd at least wait until I was inside for a few minutes before jumping down my throat. "I do still live here, you know… you're the one who's leaving."

"But I haven't left yet."

"I'm well aware."

"So maybe you could actually come home at night."

"Why do you care where I go at night?"

"We are technically still married, Vic, until the papers go through. You could at least wait until I'm gone to start shacking up with your boss."

I should lie and say that I slept at the jail but I don't have the strength tonight.

"You filed for divorce, Sean. You don't get to have a say in any part of my life anymore."

"Have I ever really had a say in your life?"

I was hoping we were past the fighting stage in our relationship but apparently I was wrong. I've been wrong a lot lately.

"I really don't have the energy to fight with you anymore." I turn and walk right back out the door.

I get in my truck and find myself driving out to Walt's cabin. It's just starting to get dark out and I can see that the lights are on inside the cabin as I pull up. The front door is open and through the screen door I see Walt lounging on the couch reading a book. He looks up when he hears me on the porch.

"Hey," I say softly.

"Come on in."

I open the door and take a few steps before stopping in the middle of the room. "I uh, I was gonna tough it out and stay at-"

"Vic, you don't have to explain."

He looks back at me with the kindest eyes that I've ever seen. "Beer's in the fridge," he says as he points towards the kitchen and then takes a sip of his own Rainier.

I walk into the kitchen and grab a beer before sitting down beside him on the couch. He goes back to reading his book and I just sit there. How pathetic am I? How did I even get to this point in my life, where I'm hiding out from my soon-to-be ex-husband? I don't want to be at home with Sean but I'm terrified of how it's going to be in a couple of days when he actually leaves for good.

I feel tears starting to well up in my eyes. I try to hold them back, but I only succeed for about a minute. Walt doesn't do anything at first, but I can feel him staring at me. Eventually he leans forward and sets his beer on the coffee table and opens his arm out towards me.

"Come here."

He shifts his body slightly on the couch and without thinking I scoot closer to him and rest my head on his shoulder. He wraps his arm around my back and squeezes my side gently.

"It's gonna be alright," are the only words he whispers for the next couple of hours. We sit in silence as we drink our beers while he continues to read.

It's gonna be alright.


	4. Moment 4

_**Okay, before I get into this chapter, let me clarify something. A handful of you have requested that I continue the last couple chapters into a separate story and continue these "moments" also. I understand that you like the scenes at the cabin, as do I. That's why I have a whole series of them already written for this story. I promise, all the feels of moments 2 &amp; 3 at the cabin will be continued, there will just be a few other moments (still relevant to Walt &amp; Vic's relationship) thrown in between. If the story still doesn't go where you wished it did, someone is welcome to take the idea of the cabin scenes and develop it into a story of their own, you have my blessing! But the whole storyline of Vic showing up at the cabin is definitely a theme here so hang with me! This one takes place at the office but I think we're back to the cabin in the next one. As always, let me know what you're thinking!**_

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**Walt**

It's almost 10 o'clock in the morning before Vic makes it into the office today. I call her into my office to ask her if everything's okay, but I regret it almost immediately. She stands in my doorway and when she looks up I can see that her eyes are bloodshot. She's been crying.

"Did you want something?"

I pause for a moment. "I was going to ask you if everything's okay, but I guess that's probably a stupid question."

She doesn't say anything, she just folds her arms across her chest and stares back at me.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Do I want to talk about the fact that my husband left for Australia last night? No. Do you want to talk about this whole Barlow thing?"

I nod my head slightly, not as an answer to her question, but to myself. I'm not surprised at all at her defensiveness, she responded exactly how I figured she would. Vic likes to talk about her feelings about as much as I do.

"You don't have to be here, you know. It's slow, you can take a couple days off if you want."

"I'll be fine." She sighs lightly. "Is there anything else you wanted?"

"Nope, that was it."

"Great." She turns and heads back to her desk.

An hour later she walks back into my office, shuts the door and sits down on the couch.

I sit back and wait for her to speak. It takes her a whole minute to work something up.

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

"You know?"

I shrug my shoulders a little. "I figured you weren't going to be in the best mood today. I didn't take it personally."

"That almost makes me feel worse."

"Why?"

"Because that means that you expected me to bite your head off when you tried to talk to me, and you did it anyway."

I laugh lightly.

"Don't be so nice. You make the rest of us look bad."

I don't really know how to respond to that. "Sorry."

"Yeah, you should be."

She doesn't say anything for another minute. She just sits there looking at her hands.

"Last night when he left, he didn't even say goodbye. I was there, but just in the other room. I figured he'd at least tell me when he was leaving, maybe give me a hug or something."

"I didn't think you two were really on good terms anymore."

"We weren't really. But we were married for 6 years, Walt, and he left without saying a word. He just walked right out the door."

She doesn't really sound hurt, she's more pissed. Her bloodshot eyes tell me that she was probably hurt last night, but her voice tells me that she's passed over to the angry stage. If I tell her I'm sorry, she'll probably yell at me. I figure in this situation, humor is probably my best bet.

"Do you want me to give you a hug?"

She shoots me a look that says "fuck off" and rolls her eyes at me. "No, I don't want you to give me a hug. Nobody wants to have to ask for a hug."

We're interrupted by Ruby's voice yelling my name from the other room. "You have a call on line one."

"Okay. Thanks." I pick up the phone and watch as Vic gets up and walks down the hallway back to her desk.

It was just Cady who called, wanting to confirm dinner at the Red Pony tonight.

The rest of the day drags on, and before Vic and Ferg head out for the day I call out for Ferg to come in my office.

"Shut the door."

He looks back at me curiously. "What's up, Sheriff?"

"I need you to do me a favor."

His eyes light up. "Anything, what do you need?"

"I want you to go and give Vic a hug on your way out of the office."

The light in his eyes quickly diminishes and is replaced with fear. "You want me to what?"

"I know it's a weird request."

"Sheriff, Vic would probably kill me if I tried to give her a hug."

"I don't think so. Just do it, please."

He looks back at me for a few moments, still slightly terrified but also curious. "Okay, Sheriff. If you say so."

He opens the door and walks down the hallway as I watch from my desk. Vic is sitting on the edge of her desk reading through a file.

"Hey, Vic. I'm heading out… I'll see you tomorrow." Then he stops in front of her, leans down and wraps his arms around her.

She freezes at first, and then her eyes dart in my direction. "Uhh, thanks Ferg. See ya tomorrow," she says as she pats him on the back with one hand, after which she brings up and flips me off behind his back.

I just nod my head and laugh to myself. Once Ferg leaves, Vic calls out to me. "You're such an asshole, Walt."

I would be worried that she's actually mad, except I can see a faint smile on her face as she packs up her things to leave.


	5. Moment 5

**Vic**

I know I shouldn't be making a habit of this, but I can't help it. I haven't been sleeping well at all this past week now that Sean is finally gone. Normally I can survive on little to no rest, but after a several days with minimum sleep it's starting to take a toll on my body. I was real bitchy today at the office and I feel bad for snapping at everybody when my anger isn't anything work related.

That's why I find myself walking up to Walt's cabin at 11 o'clock at night. I'm desperate. I need a good night's sleep and as crazy as it sounds, the last one that I had was here.

The lights are off inside, so I'm surprised when I see that the front door is still open with just the screen door shut. I guess it is a warm night, so maybe he just wanted some fresh air inside the cabin? As I get closer to the door I see a faint light coming from Walt's bedroom, but everything else is completely dark. I stand there for a few moments trying to decide what to do. Should I knock? I didn't think about what I'd do if he was already in bed. Maybe this was a bad idea; I should just go home. I turn around to head back to the truck when his voice breaks the silence of the quiet night.

"The door's open, Vic."

I stop in my tracks, only a few feet from the door. "You're awake?"

"Yep."

I open the door and once I take a few steps into the living room I can see Walt sitting in bed reading a book. I walk in further and stop in his doorway, leaning against the frame. "How did you know it was me?"

"You're the only visitor I've had lately."

"I'm sorry, I'm being a pain, I know."

"Haven't been sleeping well, have you?"

"Is it that obvious?" I frown.

He laughs lightly. "I just put two and two together. You've been pretty, uhh… cranky this week."

I sigh. "I toss and turn every single night. I just need one solid night of sleep and I'll be better, I promise."

"You don't have to apologize. Well, not to me anyway. You may want to be extra nice to Ruby tomorrow." He smiles.

I cringe, remembering a couple times that I snapped at her today. "Maybe I'll get her some flowers in the morning."

"Good call." He smiles briefly, and scoots over to the side of the bed so he's no longer in the middle. "Here, lie down."

I lie down next to him and fold my arms underneath the pillow and watch him as he goes back to reading his book.

"Can I say something?"

"You're asking permission to speak? That's a first." He replies without looking up from his book.

"Hey!" I grab my pillow and hit him with it.

He laughs. "Go ahead."

"I'm surprised at how cool you're being with all of this."

"What do you mean?" he says as he looks up from his book.

"Just that you're not weirded out by me showing up here all the time… and stunned that you didn't die of embarrassment when I climbed into your bed in the middle of the night."

He chuckles lightly. "Don't give me too much credit, I did almost have a panic attack that night."

I laugh. Once again he makes me laugh when I'm in no mood to laugh. "Sorry about that."

"It's okay."

We're both silent for a couple of minutes, and I can feel my eyes starting to get heavy. I fight it a little bit longer so I can ask one last question that's been on my mind.

"Does it get any easier?"

"What's that?"

"Sleeping in an empty bed."

He thinks for a moment. "Eventually."

He shuts his book and places it on the nightstand before shutting off the lamp and crawling under the covers.

"Did you know that you're the only other person to sleep in this bed besides Martha?" He says as he brings his arms up underneath his pillow, mirroring me.

I'm at a loss for words for a moment before I can speak. The only thing I say is, "I'm sorry… I didn't know."

"Don't be… you're not the only one who hates sleeping alone."

His eyes have this way of making you feel completely at ease, and I'm asleep within minutes.

* * *

_**What do you think? I know some of you wanted me to break the cabin scenes off into a different story because you liked where they were headed. How do you feel now?**_


	6. Moment 6

**Walt**

It's been two weeks to the day that Sean left for Australia, and one day since Vic has officially been a divorcee. I'm not counting, but she has been. Out loud. Of course she doesn't say anything around anybody else. Only me. She usually finds a way to work it into the conversation.

For example, a couple of days ago I called her into the office and asked if she wanted to take a break at noon to go get some lunch. Her response was, "Sure, at 12? Did you know it's been 12 days since Sean's been gone?"

She didn't wait for a reply. She just turned around and walked right back to her desk. I haven't figured out yet if she's making these jokes at my expense or her own.

I call her into my office towards the end of the day, and she comes in and sits in one of the chairs and rests her feet up on the edge of my desk.

"What's up?"

"Are you doing okay?"

She sighs and throws her head back. "I really hate that question."

I wait for an answer.

"I'm doing great, Walt."

"It's okay to feel sad or even angry about getting a divorce, you know. It's not a joke."

"Who said it's a joke?"

I look back at her for a moment, trying to figure out if she's messing with me or not. "You have been making comments about it all week, counting the days that he's been gone…"

The expression on her face changes, almost like she thinks I'm scolding at her. "Sorry, I guess I didn't realize that I was doing that."

"Vic, you don't have to apologize. That's the point. Nobody expects you to not be affected by all of this. You're allowed to be a little down."

She doesn't reply, and her eyes leave mine and shift down to her hands where she plays with the finger that used to hold a ring.

"I just don't want you to feel like you have to make jokes about it like it's not a big deal."

"It's not a big deal," she replies defensively, still looking at her hands.

"Vic… you can barely sleep in your own bed."

She looks up at me like I just slapped her in the face. "I won't show up at your cabin again, don't worry."

"You know that's not what I meant." This conversation is not going the way I had planned.

She fold her arms across her chest but doesn't look up at me.

Maybe I should try a different approach. "Did you know that after Martha passed away, I slept on the couch for three months?"

She looks up the second I say Martha's name. "You did?"

I nod my head. I know our situations are completely different; Martha's leaving wasn't a choice like Sean's was. After Martha was gone, I was angry just like Vic is now, except my anger wasn't directed at my spouse. I don't believe Sean and Vic had been happy in quite some time, although she hasn't exactly admitted to that. Either way, when you go from being with someone to being completely on your own, it's a hard transition no matter the situation.

"When it was just me alone in the cabin, I never even tried to sleep in the bedroom. I just couldn't bear it, so I went straight to the couch every night. After a few months, I tried sleeping back in the bedroom… but it took me a long time to get used to it again."

Her voice is soft when she replies. "How long?"

If I'm being honest, I'm still not used to it, but I'm not sure that's what I should tell her. "Long enough for me to lose track of how long."

She sighs. That wasn't the response she was hoping for either.

"I still talk to her sometimes. I'll say goodnight when I'm lying in bed, just like I always used to. I think maybe it helps."

"And I thought I was acting crazy," she says after a couple moments.

"No, you're not crazy. Or maybe we're both crazy."

This makes her smile. "Maybe."

I stare back at her trying to figure out what's going on in her head that she doesn't want to share.

"Have you been sleeping any better?"

She laughs. "Not really."

"How come you haven't come to the cabin? You know you're welcome anytime."

She eyes me for a moment, as if she's choosing her words carefully.

"No, I didn't know that. You technically only invited me the first time. Every time after that I just showed up like a stalker."

She unfolds her arms and clasps her hands together as she runs her thumbs over one another. I wonder if she notices that fidgets with her hands now that she doesn't have a ring to play with.

"Well, you have to sleep, Vic. You can come over any time."

"Did you just willingly invite me to a sleep over?"

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call it a sleep over."

She considers this for a moment before she sits up straight in her chair and a giddy grin creeps on her face. "Can we give each other facials and talk about boys?"

"We can talk about whatever you want but you're not putting anything on my face."

She eyes me for a few more seconds. "Will you make me dinner?"

I laugh lightly. "Sure. Dinner I can do."

"Tonight?" she says with a raised eyebrow.

I can't help but smile. "Sure."

"Oh thank God." She takes a deep breath. "I haven't slept in like three days."

I should tell her that I haven't been sleeping well either, but I just smile instead.


	7. Moment 7

**Vic**

"I'm so full."

Walt laughs as he pulls another beer out of the fridge. "Does that mean you don't want another beer?"

"Ugh, no. I might explode."

"Suit yourself." He cracks his beer and sits back down on the couch and sighs.

"Why did you make me eat so much?" I turn sideways so I can lean back and stretch out.

"You know damn well that nobody makes you do anything you don't want to do."

I laugh as I stretch my legs out, but he's only a few feet away from me so my feet rest in his lap a little bit.

"You're a smart man."

He smirks back. "Mmhmm."

I stare at him for a few minutes, noticing for the first time in awhile how handsome he is. I mean, I've always noticed it but my mind has been all over the place lately. He actually got a haircut not that long ago and he looks much better. He hasn't shaved in about a week I'd guess, so he has a little bit of scruff but not too much. As usual, he's wearing an old denim shirt with the top few buttons undone so his chest hair peeks out at the top. He's that kind of handsome where the person doesn't actually even know that they're handsome. Walt has this ease about him, and it sort of radiates off of him and onto me. This thing between us is always there in the back of my mind, just lately with everything going on with the divorce it got pushed even further back. I'm not even sure exactly what this _thing _is, I just know that it's always there connecting us in some way.

His voice interrupts my thoughts, "I almost forgot... there's dessert."

"You made dessert?!"

There's that smirk again. "It's just too bad you're so full."

"A woman is never too full for dessert."

He laughs and gets up from the couch, heads to the kitchen and pulls out a pie pan from the fridge. When he comes back to the couch I can see that it's a raspberry pie, and it's already half eaten with a fork still in the pan.

He sits down and picks up the fork, takes a bite and scoops it into his mouth. He lets out a big sigh before he swallows.

I really am way too full for pie but it looks so good. I scoot over closer to him. "My turn." Rather than reach for the fork I just open my mouth.

He moves to hand the pie pan to me but then stops and gives me a look once he sees me sitting there with my mouth open. He laughs lightly, and picks the fork up and scoops a bite into my mouth.

This might be the best pie I've ever had. "You did not make this."

He shakes his head. "I never said I made it, I just said there was dessert."

"Sneaky."

"I ran into Dorothy Hudson at the bank the other day and she offered to drop one off for me."

I shake my head in amazement. "The old ladies in this town just love you to pieces, don't they?" I smile back at him. He really is quite charming to the public. I don't think he actually tries to be, though, I think in his eyes he's just being polite.

He doesn't say anything and just continues to smile. He takes another bite and then forks another one out and holds it out to me.

I laugh and take the fork from him. "I can feed myself, I just wanted to see if you would do it before."

"Oh, so it was a test."

I laugh. "Something like that."

"Did I pass?"

"I guess so." I hand him the fork and lean back on the couch as I sigh. "Remind me to suck up to Dorothy the next time I see her. That is one damn good pie, but I can't eat another bite."

He takes one more bite before he sets the pie down on the coffee table. He leans back on the couch and looks over at me with an expression that I can only describe as satisfied. It's kind of amazing how comfortable we've gotten around each other over the last couple of years. To be honest, I don't think about it a lot because I don't want to complicate things… but the connection is always there. It's only on quiet nights like this that it creates a giant elephant in the room, at least for me.

I lean forward and do what I've thought about doing a hundred times, purely out of curiosity. I kiss him. It's not a forceful kiss, but it's more than just a peck on the lips. If I've surprised him, he doesn't show it. He responds right away and kisses me back.

After I pull away, I stay close to him but lean back so my cheek is resting on the back of the couch. Surprisingly, he's the first to speak. "What was that for?"

I shrug my shoulders, trying to make light of what just happened. "I just wanted to see if there was something there." I stare back at him, unblinking.

He leans his head back against the couch and locks his eyes on mine for several seconds before speaking. "There is."

"I know," I say as I sigh. "I wasn't sure if you felt it, too."

"I've tried not to."

We really are on the same page. "So have I."

I want to tell him that I don't know if I'm not ready for that yet. I want to tell him that my attraction to him isn't the reason that I'm here. I don't say any of this because I think he already knows.


	8. Moment 8

**Walt**

I'm in my office waiting for Vic to come back from a call with Ferg so she can ride with me on a pickup. We have to drive a few counties over to pick up a female prisoner and I need a female officer with me. I'm not sure what's taking so long, they've been gone almost an hour already. I walk out to the main office to ask Ruby what kind of call they're on, but I see Vic's truck pulling up as I approach the window. I immediately know somethings wrong when I see that Ferg is the one driving Vic's truck while she's in the passenger seat.

Assuming she's injured, I run down the stairs to meet them. By the time I get there, Ferg has a man in handcuffs that he's pulling after him up to the office door. I can smell the alcohol on this guy even from ten feet away. Vic's shirt has blood splattered all down the side, and she has a cut above her eye that's oozing blood like a fountain.

"What happened?" I say as I reach her.

"That asshole ran when we tried to question him. I caught him, but he got a couple good jabs at my face."

"I see that, you're bleeding everywhere."

Putting an arm at her back, I walk her up the stairs. She tries to go sit at her desk but I pull her into the wash room and shut the door.

"Let me see it."

She leans back against the sink and turns her head to the side. I grab a towel and get it a little wet before I start to dab at the blood around her eye. I'm still a few inches a way from the cut itself when she winces and immediately reaches her hands up and grabs the front of my shirt.

"Ahhhhh, fuck that hurts."

"I don't think you'll need stitches but it's going to be tender for awhile." I continue cleaning the rest of the blood off her face before tending to the cut itself. She squeals when I dab the alcohol on it.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she says through clenched teeth, still clutching my shirt. "Just hurry up please."

Once the cut itself is clean, I douse it with triple antibiotic ointment.

"There."

"How do I look?" She cringes as she looks straight ahead at me.

The spot above her right eye where the cut is at is swollen, and she's probably going to have a faint black eye here shortly. "You look great."

"You're a lying sack of shit." She turns around to look at herself in the mirror. "Jesus Christ."

"He got you pretty good."

"Well, looks aren't deceiving. It looks about as bad as it feels." She begins to wash the remainder of the blood off of her hands.

"Do you have another shirt?" I look down at her blood stained uniform.

"Yeah, in my bag." I turn to go get her bag from her desk as she reaches for a towel.

I walk in with her duffle bag just as she's undoing the last button of her uniform and sliding it off her shoulders. She's now wearing just a thin white tank top that has a few faint red stains on it where the blood seeped through.

I hold it out for her to grab but instead of taking it from my hands she unzips the bag and begins rifling through it looking for a shirt. I watch her as she works each button on the clean uniform. I feel bad that I have to make her come with me on a two hour car ride now. I haven't even told her yet that's what we have to go do; I'm about to open my mouth when she cuts me off.

"Were you just checking me out?" Her voice is a little sharp.

"What?"

"You were checking me out."

"Was I?" I frown. "I think I was zoning out."

She gives me the classic-Vic eye roll.

"I was actually thinking about how I feel bad that I have to have you come with me to transfer a female prisoner from another county. I'm sure you have a pretty nice headache now."

"Ugh. I do." She starts rifling through her bag that I'm still holding. "Let me get some aspirin first and then we can go."

"Okay… I really wasn't checking you out."

"Uh huh," she says not even looking at me.

I want to tell her that if I was checking her out, which I wasn't, but even if I was checking her out I don't see why that's a problem. She kissed me the other day, out of nowhere, but today she snaps at me because she thinks I was ogling at her. I guess she was probably just messing with me when she mentioned it anyway, sometimes it's hard to tell with Vic. I brush it off and head out the door to meet her in the Bullet.

On the drive she's quiet for awhile as she stares out the window. After about 10 minutes she unbuckles her seat belt and turns sideways on the seat, stretching her legs out towards me as she sighs loudly.

"How's your head?"

"It fucking hurts."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"I don't think so." She pauses slightly before continuing, and her voice softens when she does. "Thank you, though."

I go back to watching the road. After a few more miles she pulls her feet down off the seat and moves over to the middle seat right up next to me. She crosses her arms, rests her head on my shoulder and closes her eyes, all without saying a word.


	9. Moment 9

**Vic**

It's the weekend and I'm sitting on Walt's couch playing rummy. Rowdy Friday night, huh? This is my life now that I'm a single woman. It's kind of pathetic. Earlier at the office, Walt asked if I had any plans tonight, which I never do these days, so here I am.

"Rummy." He looks back at me with a grin on his face.

I throw my cards down. "Ugh, that's it. I quit."

Now he's laughing.

"It's not a fair match-up; you have an advantage since I've never even played Rummy before."

"Sounds like an excuse to me," he says as he gathers up the cards and shuffles the deck. He grabs the rubber band that was around the deck before we started playing and is about to wrap it around the cards when he stops and puts the deck back down.

Reaching for my wrist he says, "Give me your hand."

"Why?"

He takes the thin, worn out rubber band and wraps it twice around my wrist. What the hell is this for?

"Oh, Walt! You shouldn't have. It's so beautiful!" I bring my hand up to mock admire my new piece of jewelry.

He laughs at me. "I could tell that your hands feel bare now without a ring on. So wear that."

I freeze. "How the hell could you tell that that's been bothering me?"

"Because you always used to play with your wedding ring, and now sometimes you look like you don't know what to do with your hands."

"Huh," I mutter as I stare down at them.

"You didn't even notice that you did that, did you?"

"Well I would catch myself doing it sometimes, but I didn't know it was so often that it was noticeable to others."

"Well, I don't know about others, but I noticed."

Of course he did.

"I definitely have been missing having something on this hand." I run a finger over the worn rubber band.

He looks back at me for a few moments, just smiling. "Well, now you have that."

I can't help but grin back at him. "Well, aren't you just the sweetest?"

He shrugs as he gets up from the couch and heads to the kitchen. After he opens the fridge door he stands there for a minute looking for something that obviously isn't in there.

Still holding the door open, he glances back me. "You hungry?"

"Starving. What are ya gonna cook me?"

"Nothing. Let's go make Henry cook for us."

"Is that always what you do when you find that your fridge doesn't magically fill up with groceries?"

He laughs lightly. "Yup."

We head to the Red Pony, which is actually busy for what time it is. We take a seat at the bar, and since Henry isn't anywhere in sight, Walt goes behind the bar and grabs us both a beer. He comes out a few minutes later smiling at us.

"Well what do we have here?"

"Hey Henry, pretty good crowd tonight," I say as I take a drink of my beer.

"It is, I cannot complain." He nods toward Walt. "I see you already helped yourselves to a beer."

"Yup."

Turning his attention back to me, he smiles. "What happened to your face? Did Walt punch you again?"

I laugh. "No, it wasn't Walt this time." I've given up trying to hide it with makeup. The black eye has faded, and although the cut itself has healed a lot in the past week, it's still very visible.

"I see. Are you two eating tonight?"

"Burger for me, please," I chime in.

"Same here."

"Alright." He nods his head and stares back at us, unmoving.

Walt and I both look at each other and then back at Henry.

"What?" Walt asks curiously.

"Did you two come here together?"

"Yeah."

"But you are not on duty."

I look down at my normal clothes, thinking it should be obvious that we're off duty. "No."

"I see." He studies us for another long moment before turning and walking to the kitchen.

I turn and look at Walt. "You haven't told him that we've been hanging out?"

"No, should I have?"

"Are you ashamed of me?" I ask jokingly.

He laughs. "Vic, you've been sleeping in my bed off and on for a few weeks. Somehow that hasn't exactly come up in my conversations with Henry."

"He's your best friend, Walt."

"I don't usually share details of my personal life unless I'm asked, and he hasn't asked."

Now I'm a little curious. "If he did ask you, what would you tell him?"

"I don't know," he replies without skipping a beat.

Henry comes out of the kitchen and his timing couldn't be more perfect. He lays two plates of food down, grabs us each another beer and then just stands there and stares at us. After a couple moments of silence he speaks.

"So… are you two on a date?"

I have to hold my laugh in. I pick up a few fries and shove them into my mouth, looking at Walt expectantly, I'm sure not hiding the grin on my face. Henry looks back and forth between us before settling on Walt.

"No, we're just eating dinner Henry," Walt replies firmly.

"I see." He studies us for another moment.

"So… you are just hanging out… eating dinner?"

I don't respond because it's too fun to watch them.

"Yes. We are hanging out."

"I see."

"You said that already," Walt grumbles.

Henry doesn't any any thing for a few seconds, and then he turns his gaze to me. He leans forward on the bar just in front of me and points a finger back and forth from me to Walt. "Your turn. What is going on between you two?"

I was having so much fun watching Walt struggle with his words that I never really thought about how I'd answer that question myself. What exactly is going on between us? We've only kissed the one time, and we haven't talked about it since.

"Well, we…" I start but I trail off. I look over to Walt for help and his eyes are already on me.

"We're not sure yet." He's speaking to Henry but his eyes stay on mine.

At least we're still on the same page.

* * *

_**Alright, I know you all are used to me updating fast but it might be longer until the next update this time. I accepted a new job last week, and my last day at my current job is next Thursday! I will be moving a couple hours away and I have to pack everything by myself! I'll have my hands full, but I'll be thinking of new moments to give you once I'm back. As always, thanks for reading and let me know what you think! If you have any ideas of moments you could see happening next or just something you simply want to happen, let me know! I'm open to ideas with this one :)**_


	10. Moment 10

_**Hello! Okay I know I said it'd probably be a bit before I updated again but we got hit with a bit of a blizzard here over the weekend (11 inches!) while I was off so I was stuck inside for a few days ad got a LOT of packing done (almost all of it!) and I also had time for a little writing! Stressing over Walt and Vic's relationship is way more fun than the stress of packing. I have the next several written now so I decided to give you another one :) Enjoy!**_

* * *

**Walt**

It's a Saturday afternoon, and I'm sitting on the porch reading a book when the phone rings from inside.

"Longmire."

"Walt."

"Hey, Henry. What's up?"

"I have a little situation here."

"How little?" I really wasn't planning on going anywhere today.

"Well, Vic is here. She has been here for awhile… drinking."

I look at my watch. "Why is she drinking at three in the afternoon?" Before he can answer I add, "Does she need a ride?"

"Well, she does not know that I am calling you."

"Okay… so why exactly are you calling me then?"

"She seems a little upset. Apparently it is her husband's birthday today."

"You mean her ex-husband," I correct him.

"Yes."

"Alright, uhh… don't let her leave. I'll be in soon."

I hang up the phone. I'm not surprised Vic hadn't mentioned that Sean's birthday was coming up, but I am surprised that she didn't show any signs of it during the week. It's usually very easy to tell when something is bothering her, especially when she's actually trying to hide it. I grab my keys and head out to the Red Pony.

When I walk into the bar, I don't see her right away. She's not at sitting down anywhere, but I spot her at the back of the room browsing through the juke box. I nod at Henry on my way towards her.

"Hey," I say once I get close.

She looks up at me and exclaims, "Hey! What's up, Walt?"

I must have a sympathetic look on my face or something because her excitement quickly dwindles and she looks back to Henry at the bar. "Tattle tale!"

"Don't be mad at Henry, he was just worried about you."

"Oh, I'm not mad. Now that you're here, I have a drinkin' buddy." She smiles as she looks up at me briefly before turning her attention back to the juke box. She selects a few more songs, and as she walks away Lynyrd Skynyrd starts pouring through the speakers.

"Henry, Walt needs a beer."

I was planning on taking her home, not accompanying her. But she doesn't actually seem drunk so maybe a few more won't hurt anything.

"What are we celebrating?"

She doesn't say anything for a few seconds, she just looks back at me while she waits for Henry to grab me a beer. Once he sets one down in front of me, she raises hers up for a cheers.

"Why are you asking a question that you already know the answer to?" Her voice is soft, not challenging like it normally is when she's upset.

I tap my beer on hers and take a drink. "How come you didn't tell me that Sean's birthday was coming up?"

"I didn't remember." She sighs and turns in her chair so she's facing me. "I had to call and make doctors appointment for a physical the other day, and I went to write it down on the calendar and it hit me."

"And you decided to celebrate by getting drunk in the middle of the day?"

"Yep."

"How come you didn't call me? I would have came earlier and kept you company."

"I've been trying not to talk to you about Sean."

I take another drink of my beer before setting it down. "How come?"

She shrugs. "I don't want to live in the past. I'm trying to move forward."

I think about all the times I've brought up Martha during our conversations and I feel a pang of guilt.

As if she's reading my mind, she puts a hand on my arm. "It's different when you talk about Martha… you can move on without letting her go. She's always going to be a part of you, as she should be… but I can't continue to hang onto Sean."

"So you decide to celebrate his birthday instead?"

She laughs lightly and takes back her hand and picks up her beer. "Yeah, well…" she pauses to take a drink. "I didn't know what else to do so I was just started drinking, it's not a celebration… more like a realization I guess. I don't know, I wasn't actually planning on talking about him."

I nod. "Okay. We don't have to."

She nods back in thanks.

We sit there for a few more hours, talking about everything and nothing in particular. Neither of us mentions our spouses who are no longer here. She continues to drink, but I only have a couple more beers. I'm actually rather impressed with how well Vic holds her alcohol. She's probably had close to ten beers in about five hours and she's still functioning fairly well. She's definitely drunk, but for her size I expected her to be affected by it more.

Henry makes us dinner before I drag Vic out of the bar to drive her home. As I pull out of the parking lot, I turn to look at her. She's sitting on the seat with her legs bent underneath her, and she's running a thumb over the rubber band on her wrist.

"Where do you want me to take you?"

She smiles briefly before looking out the window. "You should probably take me to my house."

Her voice sounds a little sad. "Are you sure?"

She continues to stare out the window for a few moments before she gives me an answer.

"I want to go to the cabin… but you should probably take me to my house." She looks over at me finally and her eyes fill in the blanks.

I nod silently.

Once I pull into her driveway, I get out before she even has her seatbelt undone. She looks up at me hesitantly as I open the passenger door for her, but she slowly steps out and begins walking towards up to the front door. When she reaches the door she grabs her keys from her pocket and unlocks it, but doesn't push it open. I'm standing right behind her when she turns around.

"Thank you."

"Anytime. You gonna be okay tonight?"

She nods. "Yeah, I'll be fine. I've had plenty to drink, I'll probably pass out soon."

"Okay."

"Okay."

I stand there awkwardly staring at her for another moment before she finally turns to go inside.

"Goodnight, Vic."

She doesn't say anything but she smiles and nods before shutting the door. I turn and head back to the Bullet, not sure how I feel about heading back to an empty cabin.

* * *

_**Can anyone guess what happens next? :)**_


	11. Moment 11

_**Hey guys! It's been a hectic, BUT GOOD, week so far. I started a new job this week so I moved this weekend and all of that fun stuff. I still have a bunch of stuff to unpack still but I'll get to that this weekend :) Figured I'd give you guys a little update while I had the time. Here's the next one, which takes place later the same night. Enjoy, and let me know what you think :) Please and thanks!**_

* * *

**Vic**

I'm sitting on the couch watching TV and eating ice cream right out of the tub. Rocky road, my favorite. After Walt dropped me off earlier, I laid down and slept for four hours or so, but now I'm wide awake. I'm knee deep into an episode of The Golden Girls when I hear a very light tap on the door. It wasn't a knock exactly, it sounded like a single finger tapping very lightly at my front door.

I get up to open the door, ice cream in hand, and find Walt standing there with a tentative smile on his face.

"Hey."

"I wanted to check on you, make sure you were okay." He looks me up and down for a quick second.

I glance down at the clothes that I'm wearing and realize what he's staring at; I answered the door in my pajamas. I'm only wearing a tank top and a pair of shorts, very short ones. I'm not even wearing a bra. I realize that I should be a little embarrassed, but for some reason I'm not.

"I'm okay. You could have just called, you know." I smirk at him.

"Well, I didn't want to risk waking you up if you were asleep."

"Ahh, hence why you skipped the knocking."

He nods.

"Well, I was sleeping for a few hours but now I'm wide awake."

"Do you want any company?"

Walt Longmire certainly is feeling bold tonight. I let him in simply because I'm curious what's on his mind. He takes his hat off and walks inside, stopping in the entryway to take a look around.

"You've never been in here before, have you?"

"Nope… never had a reason to be."

"I guess not," I say as I head back to the couch and sit down. "Come on in."

He starts to follow me and then stops. "Should I take off my boots?"

"I guess that depends on how long you're staying," I speak without looking back at him.

He stands there for a few moments before I hear him begin to take his boots off. I can't help but wonder if he's here to comfort me or if he's lonely himself. He comes around the couch and sits next to me as I go back to eating my ice cream.

"You're watching the Golden Girls?"

"Yeah. I thought maybe I needed some female companionship."

He laughs.

I offer him the tub of ice cream. "Want any?"

Shaking his head lightly, he replies, "All yours."

"I'm actually getting full." I take one more bite and get up and put it back in the freezer. On my way back to the couch I shiver after eating all that ice cream, so I grab the blanket hanging on the back of the couch and huddle under it as I settle down next to him.

I haven't actually admitted this to him, but I've been sleeping a lot better here at the house by myself. Sleeping alone was never really even the issue. I was alone a lot when I was still married, since Sean's work schedule had him traveling all the time. I got used to sleeping by myself, but once Sean left for good, what I had trouble getting used to was the emptiness. It wasn't even that I actually _missed_ him, because obviously we had problems for a while and the end of our marriage was a long time coming, but it still sucks. Divorce is sad and I hate that it ended the way that it did, especially because I know that I was largely to blame. And as cliche as it sounds, knowing that he was never coming back here left this hole inside of me that I've been walking around with. Being with Walt makes it easier to avoid the hole, but it's also gotten easier to be alone here at the house the last few weeks. Of course I haven't told him this, so I still stay at the cabin once every few days. I really do just enjoy being in his company, even though this thing between us is starting to blur the lines a little.

We sit there on the couch next to each other and watch an entire episode without speaking. We both laugh occasionally, but we don't talk. Once the episode is over I turn and face him, still huddled under the blanket.

"Question."

"Okay."

"Are you here tonight because you thought I didn't want to be alone, or because you didn't want to be alone yourself?"

His eyebrows furrow and he looks instantly nervous. "I'm sorry, did you want to be alone?"

I shake my head. "I didn't say that. It's just a question, Walt."

He studies me for a moment before he answers. "Both, I guess."

"Just curious."

"Is that okay?"

"Is it okay that you didn't want to be alone?"

He nods.

I stare back at him and give him a smile as I shrug. "It's okay by me."

I turn my gaze back to the TV but he breaks the silence after a minute.

"Why didn't you come back to the cabin earlier tonight?"

I stare straight ahead. "I think you know why."

He doesn't respond, and I turn to face him once I can't take the silence anymore.

Looking back at me, his eyes are heartbreaking. I can tell he's so confused by me right now, and I wish that I could explain what's going on in my fucked up mind. I open my mouth to speak three or four different times but nothing comes out. He reaches over and places his palm on the side of my face. His hand is warm, and I can't help but lean into his touch. This is why I couldn't go to the cabin earlier.

I give in.

I drift towards him, closing the already short distance between us. I place a quick kiss at the corner of his mouth, and then hover there for a few moments listening to him breathe. When I place my hand on his chest, I can feel his heartbeat start to quicken, and I know that he's in the same place as me. When I crush my lips to his, his hands immediately grab onto my face, holding me to him. This kiss is definitely different than the first one we shared. This time his kisses are deliberate and methodical, his tongue moving slowly against mine. We make-out like a couple of teenagers for a few minutes before I pull away.

I keep my face close to his, and I can feel his quickened breath on my face. "That's why I couldn't go to the cabin earlier, I was afraid that would happen."

He nods, and I know he knew the reason before he asked. His face is still close to mine, and the smell of him is intoxicating. I pull him into another long, slow kiss. And once again, it's me that pulls away a minute later.

"Yep, it's still there," I say as I lean back against the couch.

"I don't think it's going anywhere."

I sigh again. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm not sure if I'm expecting our connection to just fade out of the blue or what. I don't know what I want to happen between us and I'm not sure if I even want there to be an us, I just know that I like being around him. He makes me feel safe, and his kisses fill that hole up a little bit more each time.

"So, uhh… what now?"

"I don't know… it's confusing." I answer honestly.

He nods as he reaches a hand up and brushes a few strands of hair off of my face, tucking them behind my ear before pulls me forward into his chest.

I wrap my arms around his stomach and turn my attention back to the TV. In this episode, coincidentally, Blanche is trying to date again after recently being dumped.

I grab the remote, turn the channel and settle back against Walt's chest.


	12. Moment 12

_**Okayyy… I finally finished this next part. I've been stuck on this particular moment for awhile, but only because the way I'm writing them by alternating perspectives, I had a missing Walt one in the middle. So I have the next 3-4 moments done still. I've kind of just been thinking of little moments and them sticking them in somewhere, depending on whose perspective I want it to be from, and then kind of tying it into the story as I write it.**_

_**I finally did have the idea for this moment from Walt's perspective and what I wanted to happen, and was going to write/finish it this past Saturday… aaaaaand then I got the stomach flu and was a zombie for the next couple of days. I'm finally feeling better..ish :) So I knocked this one out tonight for you guys! Hopefully I can perfect the next few moments that I already have written and can get those ones up for you here soon too :) As always, thanks for reading and I love hearing what you think about them!**_

* * *

**Walt**

Vic strolls into Henry's office with the first aid kit in her hand. She sets it on the desk that I'm leaning on and stands in front of me.

"You wanna tell me what the hell that was?" She says as she grabs my hand to inspect my slightly swollen knuckles. Her voice sounds somewhere in between pissed and amused.

"Sorry."

"I didn't ask for apology." She grabs a rag and starts dabbing at the blood seeping out of my nose and lip.

"I was trying not to listen to him, but I couldn't let him talk to you like that."

"It was just talk. He wouldn't have done anything if you wouldn't have got in his face."

He also wouldn't have done it if I wouldn't have been wearing normal clothes. Without my badge, that asshole from out of town had no idea I was the sheriff.

She roughly presses the rag into my nose and I try not to let her see me wince.

"I don't need you defending my honor, you know. I could have handled him."

Of course she could have handled him, I have no doubt about that. "I know."

She sighs. I know she doesn't love being taken care of, but I couldn't listen to him talk to her like that, and the way that he looked at her made me want to rip his eyes right out of their sockets.

My eyes drift away from hers for a few seconds before finding them again. "Everybody deserves to have someone stick up for them, whether they need it or not."

She purses her lips as she studies my face. "Fair enough."

I can't tell if she's irritated with me or not; maybe I should apologize again just to be sure.

She cocks her head at me like she's trying to read my mind. "What?"

"I'm sorry."

She stares back at me for a few moments. "I'm sorry you have a busted lip."

She takes her hand and gently runs her thumb over my bottom lip where it's split open. She doesn't say anything right away, but her voice is soft when she does. "Thank you for coming to my defense… even though it wasn't necessary."

"You're welcome… but a thank you isn't necessary either."

She smiles and leans forward and gently presses her lips to mine. It's just a quick kiss, as it's hard to manage this with a busted lip. She pulls her head back briefly to look at me as she steps in closer to me and wraps her arms around my neck. She starts to lean in for another kiss but she stops when someone clears their throat from the doorway. Neither of us move. Vic smiles and rests her forehead on mine for a brief moment before speaking.

"Hey Henry." She says before she sighs lightly and turns her head towards the doorway.

I follow suit and look over to find Henry leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest. I'm not surprised in the least to see a smirk on my best friend's face.

"I do hope you are done picking fights in my bar tonight."

I don't even have time to answer before Vic beats me to it. "He is."

She looks back at me and beams, unmoving with her arms still around my neck. "His macho jealousy got the best of him, that's all."

"I was not jealous."

She cocks her head to the side and raises her eyebrows at me. Is she messing with me?

"Vic, he was looking at you like you were a juicy piece of steak." I hear Henry laugh from the doorway.

"Maybe he was, but that's not always a bad thing. Sometimes it's nice to feel desired like that."

"I'm not sure 'desired' is the right word there. He looked like he wanted to swallow you whole."

She laughs heartily, and I can feel her warm breath on my face. "I'm not saying I would have taken him up on anything, because I definitely wouldn't have. I'm just saying it was kind of flattering."

I've never thought of myself as a jealous man, but maybe they're right. I guess it's possible that I did overact a little. I turn to look at my faithful friend.

"What do you think, Henry?"

He holds his hands up in the air. "I am not getting in the middle of you two. Plus, it does not look like there is much room." He laughs lightly as he adds that second part.

I turn my head back to Vic who is looking down at her arms still around my neck. I was very aware that we were still in this position, but I couldn't exactly get out of it once Henry walked in without making things awkward. Furthermore, I know Vic is just staying like this to make me uncomfortable in front of Henry. She loves to see me squirm.

She laughs as she releases her arms and takes a tiny step back from me.

"I'll make room for you Henry." She reaches down and grabs something from the first aid kid and goes back to cleaning up my face.

"No, no. That is quite alright, I should get back to work."

"We'll be out in a minute," she calls after him as he walks away.

She continues wiping the blood off of me as I stare back at the perfect features of her face.

"Do you really think I was jealous?"

"Yes." She pauses and smiles. "But I think jealousy is also a form of desire… and I appreciate it a hell of a lot more coming from you than that stranger out there."

"Yeah?" I never even thought of it like that.

She nods. "And and you do know I wouldn't have taken him up on anything, right?"

I look back at her and her eyes are genuine. "I know."

She smiles briefly before stepping back and throwing the bloody rags in the trash. "Come on, big guy. I'll buy ya a beer."

She grabs my hand and pulls me up off of the desk and towards the bar. She lets go once we get out of Henry's office and we take a seat at the end of the bar. Henry comes over a minute later and places a beer in front of each of us. He looks back and forth between us with that stupid little grin on his face.

"So… what is going on between you two?"

Vic laughs. She looks at me and then back at Henry. "We're not sure yet." Then she takes a big swig of her beer and sets it back down on the bar top before crossing her arms across her chest.

Henry stares back at her for a moment before turning his gaze to me, staring at me expectantly.

"What she said." I copy Vic and take a drink of my beer before setting it down and crossing my arms over my chest.

Henry says nothing. He just shakes his head, picks up his bar rag and walks away. Vic laughs loudly after him, satisfied with herself for being a pain in the ass.

I stare over at her and take another sip of my beer. Even though not knowing what's going on between us is driving me nuts, my mood is lifted just by the sound of her laughter.

She looks over and smiles at me, and I do the same. I can feel the slit in my lip begin to crack open again. Even though my lips are dry and it burns a little, this broken smile sure does feel good.


	13. Moment 13

_**Here's another one for ya already! I'm not sure this would ever happen on the show, but a girl can dream, right? :) Thanks to all the continuous readers and especially those who drop by and comment! I appreciate it so much!**_

* * *

**Vic**

It's early morning when I begin to wake up, which I only know because the room is just starting to become light. It takes me a moment before I remember where I am. I came over to the cabin late last night, for no other reason than that I just wanted to see him.

I'm a little perplexed when I open my eyes because I see an arm draped over me, and not to mention the warm breath I feel on my neck. I'm fairly certain that this was not the position that we fell asleep in. I wonder how long we've been like this; Walt is snoring softly in my ear and I'm surprised it hasn't woken me up sooner.

"Walt," I whisper as I tap the arm that's draped over my side. "Walt."

"Mmmm?" He nuzzles his nose into my neck and hugs me closer, his hand now on my stomach.

I laugh a little under my breath because I know that he isn't doing any of this consciously. "Walt… this is quite the position we're in."

He rolls back slightly and takes a deep breath. "What?"

I don't say anything and wait for him to open his eyes and notice how we're lying. It only takes him a few more moments.

"I'm sorry," he says as he takes his hand off of me. "I must have done that in my sleep."

"It's okay. I figured."

I roll over so I can face him, and I'm startled to see that he's wearing only boxers. I'm even more shocked that that he's wearing boxer briefs, not plaid boxers, which for some reason is what I pictured he wore.

"Where the hell are your clothes?"

He looks down and I feel bad for blurting it out like that, because now he looks embarrassed.

"I, uhh… sorry… I got hot in the middle of the night."

I laugh. "I see that."

"Sorry," he mutters again as he starts to sit up, I'm assuming to grab his pants.

I grab his arm and pull him back down. "It's fine, Walt. I've seen a man in his underwear before."

He leans back down on his pillow but he still looks uncomfortable. I grab the sheet and pull it up over his lower half.

"There." I smile at him and he laughs lightly.

"What are we doing, Vic?"

"Spooning in our sleep apparently."

He eyes me.

"Not helpful, right." I shift my body slightly and fold an arm up underneath my pillow. "We're not doing anything, we're just being us."

He sighs, and I know he's not satisfied with my answer. Never in a million years did I think that Walt would be the first one to question the status of a relationship.

"I don't know… I just got divorced Walt, and I know it sounds like such an asshole thing to say, but I don't know if I want to put a label on this… whatever _this_ is."

He nods like he understands what I'm saying, but when he speaks it's clear that he doesn't. "I know I'm a lot older than you…"

I lift my head up from my pillow. "That's why you think I'm holding back?"

He shrugs.

I prop myself up briefly on my elbow before moving closer and hovering over top of him with my hands resting on the bed, one on each side of him. Slowly bending down, I mold my lips to his. It's slow, wet and full of morning breath, but I don't care. I want him to know that I'm attracted to him, that this isn't just me being lonely or playing some game.

He responds quickly and kisses me back with equal intensity. Moving his hands up to my sides, he pulls me down onto his chest. I start to pull away a minute later as his hands move to my back and start to roam south. We're not quite ready for that yet.

He stares up at me in a loaded silence.

"Do you feel that? My attraction to you doesn't give a shit about your age."

He nods. "It's just hard to believe sometimes."

"Well, ingrain it in that big head of yours." I lay back down beside him but fold my arms underneath my chin and rest them on his chest.

He reaches forward and brushes a strand of hair off of my face. "I've tried not to feel the way that I do."

"And how is it that you feel?"

He pauses and chooses his next words carefully. "I almost always prefer to be alone rather than in someone else's company… except when I'm with you."

I find myself smiling, and it takes everything in me not to reach forward and kiss him again. I want to hear more. "And?" I beam over at him, taking advantage of his chattiness this morning.

"And… I know that you always have my back, inside and outside of work, but I'm finding that I'm very protective of you. It's a little distracting."

I think back to the incident last week when he punched that guy who made a pass at me. Even if he was a little jealous, I know his heart was in the right place. He's protective of all women like that, or all people, really.

"That's who you are, Walt. You try and protect everybody."

He looks like he wants to say something but he doesn't, and instead just nods slightly.

"You know that goes both ways, right? I feel the exact same towards you."

I'm not sure if he's surprised by this or not, but he stares back at me and nods again.

"And I've tried not to feel this way too, you know. More so when I was still with Sean."

He smiles sadly, and pauses for a couple moments before he speaks again. "You never really answered my question."

"What was the question again?"

"What are we doing?"

I sigh. "We're spending time together… and occasionally making out."

He shoots me a look and is about to open his mouth when I cut him off. "I wasn't finished. I'm open to see what happens here, but we need to make sure we're both ready for this before we dive in head first."

He nods, and I think he understands that it's the best that I can do right now. "Okay."

I don't tell him that I actually dove in the moment I signed my divorce papers when he asked me to stay. I've been treading water ever since.


	14. Moment 14

_**Here you go :) This one's not much, but they're getting there I promise! I know you guys are getting antsy but I'm enjoying making their relationship complicated, because let's face it, are they ever really simple and easy? This one's a two-part moment, so the next one will take place after this one :)**_

* * *

**Walt**

I'm sitting at the Red Pony eating dinner with Cady when Vic walks in through the door. She doesn't notice us at first, or at all actually until Cady calls her name.

"Vic!"

She looks around as she to tries to figure out who called her name. She finally spots us at the other end of the bar. She doesn't look good. I mean, she _always_ looks good, but there's something off about her. She seems preoccupied, maybe?

"Hey guys," she mutters as she walks in our direction. "What's going on?"

"Oh, we're just having a little father/daughter dinner," Cady beams. "What about you?"

"Just came in for some food. I didn't feel like cooking," she replies a little out of breath.

There's definitely something wrong with her. "You okay? You don't look so good."

"Thanks," she grunts as she takes a seat next to Cady, swiveling her chair towards us.

"I didn't mean it like that, you always look good." Her mouth curls up into a small smile, and I can see Cady looking at me out of the corner of my eye. "I uhh… I just meant that you don't look like you feel well, that's all."

She attempts a smile. "I know what you meant. I felt alright earlier at work, but I don't know, I think I'm coming down with something now."

I glance around searching for Henry, but he must be back in the kitchen. I get up and walk behind the bar and pour her a glass of water. Once I place it in front of her, she forces a smile in thanks and takes a big gulp of it. Her face barely has any color to it. I reach forward and place my hand on her forehead. She's a little warm, and clammy.

"You have a little bit of a fever, Vic. You really should be home in bed."

She sighs. "I know, and I plan to be soon."

"Vic."

I must be giving her a concerned look, because she stares up at me and her eyes tell me to calm down. She glances down at my hands resting on the bar top. She moves her hand slightly like she's going to grab mine but then stops herself and shifts in her chair.

"I'll go to bed soon, I just haven't eaten much all day and figured I should get something in my system. I haven't been hungry but didn't think anything of it until I got home and started to feel out of it."

I swear she's looking paler by the minute.

"I'll go tell Henry to whip up some of his special soup."

She raises an eyebrow at me. "Special soup?"

Cady, who has been quiet for the last minute, pipes up. "Don't ask. All you need to know is that it works."

Vic laughs lightly. "Okay."

I walk back into the kitchen to ask Henry to start a pot of soup, and I already know before he tells me that it's going to take a while before it's ready.

"Vic, why don't you go home and I'll bring you the soup once it's done."

"Walt, I'm fine. I can wait for it."

"You look exhausted, which makes sense if you haven't eating anything today. Go home and get some rest." I look to Cady for help.

She takes the bait, and turns towards VIc. "Henry has made this soup for me every time I've been sick since I was a little girl. It does take a bit for him to whip it up, but it's definitely worth it."

She sighs and looks back and forth between us before her eyes settle on me. "You don't need to drive all the way out to my place just to bring me soup."

"Well, Ferg is off tomorrow and Branch has to be in court, so I can't have you call in sick in the morning."

This catches a laugh out of her. "Ohhh, now I get it."

Obviously, I'm kidding and if she's really still not feeling well I would let her stay home. But I also know Vic; unless she's on her death bed, she'll likely make it into the office. She's a lot like me in that way. I can count on one hand the number of sick days I've taken in my life.

"Are you sure it's no trouble? I don't want to interrupt your guys' dinner."

I'm about to reply but Cady beats me to it.

"Our food should be ready soon, so by the time we're done eating your soup will probably be ready." She looks her over with reassuring eyes. "Go get some rest, Vic."

She hesitates for another moment before I see her give up. "Alright, if you guys insist."

I nod. "I'll walk you out."

She smiles at me briefly before saying goodbye to Cady and turning towards the door. Once we're outside, she turns and faces me while she continues walking backwards across the parking lot.

"I could stay and wait for it, you know."

"I know you could, but that doesn't mean you have to."

She smiles but doesn't say anything else until she reaches her vehicle. She climbs up into her truck but leaves the door open.

"See you soon, I guess?"

"Yeah." I reach forward and feel her forehead again. "Drive safe, you really are warm."

She shrugs. "I think I'm always a little warm around you."

I let my hand fall from her forehead but she grabs it on the way down. Her hand feels so tiny compared to mine. I'm not sure who moves first, or if it was at the same time, but she pulls on my arm and leans into me. She buries her face into my chest as I wrap my arms around her.

"I wanted to do that inside, but thought I probably shouldn't in front of Cady." Her voice is muffled against my chest.

"I figured as much."

We stay like that for a minute or so before she pulls back. I step back so she can shut the car door, and she rolls down the window and starts the truck simultaneously.

"I'll be over soon."

She nods and pauses for a moment. "Will you stay?"

"If you want."

She looks satisfied with that answer. "I'll leave the door unlocked. Just come on in."

"Okay."

She leans out the window a little and curves a finger at me wanting me to move closer. "I know I might be getting sick, but come here."

I oblige and she gives me a quick peck on the lips.

"Thanks," she says through a faint smile. "See you soon."

She then fastens her seatbelt and drives off. I stand there and watch her drive down the road for a minute until I can't see the lights anymore. I head back inside, hoping that Cady doesn't ask me any questions about Vic. I'm not sure I'd be able to deny anything tonight.


	15. Moment 15

**Vic**

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I notice is that my stomach is growling. Once I got home from the Red Pony last night, my energy level went downhill fast. I couldn't stay awake while I was waiting for Walt to get here with the soup, but I woke up when I heard him come through the front door. I'm not sure how long I had been sleeping at that point, but I think he said it had taken an hour or so for Henry to whip up his weird concoction. He forced me to eat a little of the soup before he tucked me into bed. He tried to sneak out and sleep on the couch but I selfishly asked him to stay.

I look around now, it's barely light outside and I'm alone in the bedroom. The smell of coffee fills the house. Upon sitting up and stretching I find that my entire body is sore, like it is when you sleep for too long. Grabbing the blanket on the end of the bed, I wrap it around my shoulders as I head out into the kitchen.

Walt is standing at the counter, looking for something in the cabinet. His back is to me, so he doesn't see me coming when I walk up and wrap my arms around him from behind.

In classic Walt form, instead of 'good morning' the first thing he says is, "How are you feeling?"

"I can't tell yet," I mutter into his denim shirt. "What are you looking for?"

"Coffee creamer."

"You don't use creamer."

"No, but you do."

I smile so big that I wonder if he can feel it on his back. Moving out from behind him, I open the cabinet one over to the right, pull out the coffee creamer and set it on the counter. When I look up at him he smiles.

"That's the only one I hadn't checked yet."

"Is there still soup?"

"Yep. I saved it for you. I'll heat it up."

He grabs the container from the fridge as I hop up and sit on the counter. I watch him while he finds a pot to use, and he looks in three different drawers for a spoon before looking over at me for direction. I lean down and open the drawer directly beneath me and hand him a wooden spoon.

"Thanks." He turns the stove on and stirs the soup briefly before coming to stand in front of me.

"How did you sleep?"

"You're the sick one, I should be asking you that."

"Okay."

His eyes flicker in amusement. "How did you sleep?"

"Good. I don't think I woke up once."

"Good. I don't think you moved once either."

"Did you stay in the bedroom the whole night?"

"Mostly."

"Mostly?"

He nods. "I got up a couple of hours ago."

"Was it weird sleeping in there?"

"A little." He surprisingly doesn't hesitate before he answers.

"I thought it might be."

He shrugs his shoulders before stuffing his hands into his front pockets. "It shouldn't be. You don't seem to feel awkward at the cabin?"

"I don't."

He doesn't say anything, but he stares back at me and I can't be sure, but I think I see a little sadness in his eyes.

"There's no guilt or anything like that for me to feel for being at your place. I don't know, I guess maybe there should be but I don't feel it." I pause for a few moments, not really knowing how to continue.

"Maybe it's because I never got to meet Martha. You knew me and Sean together, so it makes sense that it would be a little awkward for you to be here… especially in the bedroom.

He nods, not saying anything further on the subject. After reaching over to stir the soup, he turns to face me again.

"Come here." I reach out for his hand, which he takes immediately. Directly in front of me now, I take his other hand and intertwine our fingers. We stay like this for a minute in complete silence.

"Are you okay?"

He nods. "Yeah."

I think he's about to say something else when he leans forward and brushes he lips softly against mine. He's tentative at first, and at one point he breaks the kiss and hovers for a few seconds before he returns with a little more lust. His hands break free from mine and move to my waist as I wrap mine around his neck.

Kissing Walt gets better and better each time, although I can't really explain how. There's a hunger that grows deeper each time we touch. I could do this all day. I could, except Walt pulls away after about a minute.

"What was that for?" I think back to the time we first kissed when he had this same reaction.

"I just wanted to."

"You know that's the first time that you've actually initiated something between us?"

He nods and moves his hands gently down from my waist and on my thighs. "I know."

"Why now?"

He shrugs his shoulders just barely. "I don't know, I just felt like it."

A laugh sneaks out of me. "It can't be my irresistible good looks this morning, I'm sure I look like hell." I run my fingers through my hair.

He shakes his head. "Women always look their best first thing in the morning, before you have time to look in the mirror and start judging yourselves." He reaches over and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. This is starting to become a habit of his, and I can't say that I mind.

"You're something else, you know that?"

He doesn't say anything, he just leans forward and kisses me again. I'm a little self conscious because I haven't brushed my teeth yet, but he must not mind because he even slips his tongue in this time. His hands move around to my back and find their way up my shirt a little. The touch of his hands on my bare skin sends a chill up my spine, bringing me back to reality, and I have to pull back before this goes any further.

"Okay, okay."

"Sorry," he laughs lightly.

I wipe my lips with my thumb and shift my body slightly on the counter. "I guess you're not worried about me getting you sick."

He smiles. "I'll steal a few bites of soup."

I let out a laugh. "Do we have to go to work today?"

"Yes. Well, I do."

I sigh dramatically. "It's a Tuesday, Walt. Nothing ever happens on Tuesdays."

"Someone's gotta be there, Vic."

I lean over and grab my cell phone that's sitting on the counter a few feet away from me and speed dial the office. Ruby picks up on the second ring.

"Hey Ruby, it's me."

"Oh good morning, Vic!"

"I'm not feeling the best today, could you route any dispatch calls that come in today to my cell phone?"

I stare at Walt, who cocks his head to the side in confusion.

"Uh sure, but Walt should be in shortly, so he can probably handle everything today."

"He's actually here with me. We're gonna work from home today if that's okay? Just route any calls to my cell and one of us will take care of it."

"Oh, alright."

"Thanks, Ruby."

"You're welcome. Feel better, Vic."

I set the phone back down on the counter and Walt looks like he just saw a ghost. "What did she say?"

"She said okay."

"She didn't ask why I was here?"

He looks so cute when he's worried. "Nope."

"Well, she has to suspect something, Vic. What are we gonna tell her?"

I shrug, I thought about that, but to be honest I don't really care. "Well, we can tell her nothing because she probably isn't going to ask. If she does ask, we can either tell her the truth… orrrr you could make up some weird explanation that she probably won't believe anyway. It's up to you."

His eyes narrow, still looking shocked at what I just did.

"There's no law enforcement rule that says we can't be involved, Walt."

Instead of asking me how I know that, he just nods, which leads me to assume that he's also checked the rule book. He takes a few steps over to the stove and stirs the soup. He laughs lightly when he looks back at me.

"I can't believe you just did that."

"Believe it," I say through a grin. "Come here, I'll make it up to you."

He laughs again. "Looks like somebody's feeling better."

I have to admit, I do feel pretty great.

* * *

_**Big step for Walt by actually making a move! :) Let me know what you guys think?! What's it gonna be like at the office from now on?! Does Cady suspect anything? More to come soon!**_


	16. Moment 16

**Walt**

It's been a little over a week since Vic and I took a "sick" day and worked from home. Ruby only ended up routing two calls to Vic's cell that day, and both were minor issues that I was able to take care of quickly. But each time that I talked to Ruby that day, she didn't mention a single thing about me being gone from the office or anything about me being with Vic. Additionally, every day after that she's acted completely normal. I'm beginning to wonder if someone's playing a trick on me.

It's just about lunch time, so I head out to the main office to see if anybody wants anything from the Pony.

"I'm going to go get something to eat, does anybody want anything?" I say this to the whole room, but I glance down at Vic first.

"Oh, actually I was just about to come ask you if you wanted anything. I'm starving, I'll come with you."

"Oh, uhh…" I glance over at Ruby who's staring at me. "Okay, sure. Ruby, do you uhh want anything? Or would you like to come with us?"

I can feel Vic staring at me.

"I'll stay here Walter, but will you bring me back a salad please?" She looks at me sweetly.

"You bet. Anyone else want to come?"

Ferg looks up from a report he's reading. "No thanks, Sheriff. I'm waiting for a call back from the DOT, but I'll take a burger if you don't mind."

"You got it. Branch?"

"Already ate, thanks." He smiles.

Vic looks at me with an amusing look on her face as she grabs her coat and heads for the door. Once we get in the Bullet, she turns to me and laughs.

"What the hell was that?"

"What?"

"You never make a point to invite people to come to lunch with you. You're worried about what they think, aren't you?"

She doesn't sound mad, but actually the opposite.

"Ruby has to know there's something going on between us, Vic."

"Does she?"

"I don't know, does she?"

"Well she hasn't said anything to me, but I assume she's put two and two together."

"But she hasn't said anything about it. Why not?"

"What do you expect her to say? She knows you're never upfront about anything in your personal life, especially while you're at work."

I guess she does have a point.

"Walt, Ruby is a smart woman. If I had to guess, she probably noticed an attraction between us before we even admitted to it ourselves. But she also usually minds her own business, she's not going to make a big deal out of this unless we do… and by we, I mean you."

"So you do think she knows?"

"Probably, but I don't know, I haven't really been thinking about it. You shouldn't either, you know."

"I can't help it."

"Nothing's different between us at work, Walt. We're not a couple here, we're just partners."

That word catches my attention and I snap my head in her direction. "Are we a couple outside of work?"

She smiles. "Not if you can't get used to the idea of people finding out about us."

I sigh, and I know that she's right. I also know how lucky I am. Any other woman would probably be pissed off at me right now, thinking that I'm embarrassed of them or something, but not Vic.

"I'm sorry. It's just weird."

"I know it is for you, and that's okay but we're gonna have to deal with it."

"What do you suggest we do?"

She shrugs. "Dinner at the Pony? It doesn't have to be anything special. Just let people see us together out of uniform?"

"I think I can do that. Tonight?"

She nods gently. "Sure."

I must have a slight look of panic on my face, because she reaches over and places her hand on top of mine, squeezing it gently. "Don't worry, it'll be fine."

"I know." I say that but I don't mean it. I don't know at all. I don't know how she can be so calm and collected about all of this. Is this a generation thing? Am I really that out of practice?

Vic runs home to change after work meets me at the cabin before we drive out to the Red Pony together. I think she can tell that I'm nervous because she keeps shooting glances at me while I'm driving, but she doesn't say anything until we park.

"It's gonna be fine, Walt. You'll see."

I nod. "Yeah. It's no big deal, right?"

"Well, I never said that."

"What?"

"That it's no big deal… it's the first step at a relationship for us, of course it's a big deal."

Wait, what exactly is she saying?

"Just because I'm not worried about what others think about us or care that they find out, that doesn't mean that I'm not nervous about it."

I don't give this woman near enough credit. This does surprise me though, because she seems completely calm.

"You don't seem nervous at all."

She smiles. "I just hide it better than you do."

She does a lot of things better than I do.

We head across the parking lot and I think about grabbing her hand but I don't. I think she knows how nervous I am and so she doesn't reach to grab mine either. We walk inside and head straight to the bar. Henry eyes us as we walk towards him but doesn't say anything until we sit down on the bar stools in front of him.

"Well what do we have here?" He says this as he takes a rag and wipes down the bar top.

"Hey Henry," I say as nonchalantly as I can. "Can we get a couple of beers?"

"No."

"No?"

He leans forward and rests his elbows on the bar top. "Not until you tell me what is going on between you two."

What the hell? I'm about to open my mouth to protest when Vic intercedes.

"We're on a date."

Henry turns his gaze from me to Vic, and raises an eyebrow. "You are on a date?"

"Why are you surprised? Isn't that what you've thought every other time you've asked us that?"

He smiles. "Well, yes. But I did not think you would actually admit to it."

He turns around and grabs two beers and places them in front of us.

"Be nice to him, Henry. He's nervous."

"I'm fine," I say as I take a drink of my beer.

Vic gives me that look, a look I've seen many times. "Mhhmm." She stands up and takes off her coat and places it on the back of her chair. "I'm gonna run to the little girl's room."

She presses up against me and places a kiss right on my temple before she turns and struts to the bathroom. She's probably walking normal, but to me it looks like a strut.

I take another drink of my beer and look up to Henry smiling at me. I think he's waiting for me to say something, but I don't offer anything up. He stares at me in silence for almost a full minute until he can't stand it anymore.

"A date, huh?"

"Yep."

"And whose idea was this?"

"Whose do you think?"

He laughs. "Right. Let me guess… you were acting strange and Vic thought you should spend time together in public, so you quit acting so… Walt-like."

Humph. I take another drink of my beer. "Something like that."

He smiles, satisfied. "So… have you told Cady?"

"Not yet."

His brows furrow. "Do you really think you should put that off?"

"I'm not putting it off."

"Putting what off?" Vic says as she returns to her stool and takes a swig of her beer.

"I was asking if he had told Cady about you two yet."

"Ahh," she says as she exhales deeply and sets her beer back down.

"What?" The edge in her voice catches me a little off guard.

She shrugs. "I've been wondering about that, too. I just haven't had the chance to bring it up to you yet."

"You need to tell her Walt. I know you probably think that it is none of her business, but she will be very upset if you hide this from her." Henry's voice is stern, his eyes narrowed at me.

"We will tell her soon."

Vic snaps her head in my direction. "We?"

"What?"

"Don't you think this is something you should tell her on your own?"

"Why?"

"Walt, I'm like five years older than Cady is. There's a good chance that she's not going to be 100% on board with this."

"Well, it's really none of her business."

She gives me one of those smiles that makes me want to kiss her. "I agree that she doesn't have the right to tell you who to be involved with, but she still deserves to know. And I think we both know she'll be able to talk more freely about her thoughts on the situation if I'm not present."

I sigh. I don't like having to make a point to tell people about things in my personal life, but I suppose they might be right in this case. I did get upset when Cady dated Branch behind my back, but Branch was my employee so that was different. Cady doesn't have any sort of relationship with Vic so the obligation to tell her isn't the same, but I do think she would be hurt if I kept our relationship from her for very long.

Vic continues to watch me think. "What do you say?"

I take a drink of my beer before looking over at her. "I hate it when you're right."

She gives me a lopsided smirk. "Good answer," she says as she scoots her chair closer to mine. After taking a deep breath, she hooks her arm through mine and rests her head on my shoulder.

"We'll figure it out, Walt."


	17. Moment 17

**Vic**

I'm sitting at the Red Pony waiting for our lunch when Cady comes and takes the seat next to me.

"Hey, Vic. What's up?" She doesn't seem surprised to see me. It's almost as if she came here looking for me.

I shrug my shoulders and try to act normal, like I haven't been seeing her dad behind her back. "Just picking up lunch for the gang… the usual. How are you?"

"Good. I got done in court early today so I thought I'd stop in and see Henry for a bit."

I nod my head, realizing Cady and I never really have much to talk about when it's just the two of us.

"How's my dad?"

Unsurprisingly, she brings up the only thing she and I have in common. "Good, I guess. Have you not seen him recently?"

She shakes her head. "No, it's been about a week I guess. I've been meaning to call him and schedule lunch or a dinner but haven't had a chance yet."

"Ahh, well I'm sure he'd love that." I say this because I know it's true, but also because I know they have a lot to talk about. Even if he's busy he's going to make time if I have anything to say about it, and if he chickens out I'm gonna kill him.

"Do you know if he's free?"

"He hasn't mentioned any plans or anything. We're not really working on a case right now if that's what you mean."

She shakes her head lightly and a serious look grows on her face. "That's not what I mean."

I don't know how, but I immediately sense that she knows; maybe it's a female thing, like a sixth sense or something. It's been a week since we talked about telling Cady about us, or rather we talked about Walt telling her about us. I haven't brought it up since that night and it's obvious he hasn't told her yet.

"Okay…"

She doesn't respond but just sits there and stares at me, barely blinking.

"I'm not promising I'm going to answer it, but if you have a question Cady, just ask it."

She purses her lips and waits a moment before replying. "What's going on between you and my dad?"

I was hoping she'd ask _if_ there was something going on between us, not _what_ is going on. The former would have been an easy yes or no answer. "I think that's something you need to talk to him about."

This isn't me chickening out, I just really think this is a conversation that she needs to have with him first.

"He's not going to tell me."

I frown because I know she's right. Well, he will tell her eventually because I'm going to make him. But if he didn't have someone forcing him to do it he wouldn't ever bring it up. I don't want to lie to her so I don't exactly know what to say.

"Cady, this really should be coming from him."

"Please." Her eyes plead with me.

I sigh. "I honestly don't really know how to even answer that question."

She waits.

"Well, it's obvious that you can tell there's something between us."

"I was beginning to think you two were the only ones who couldn't tell."

"Well… we finally figured it out."

"When?"

I try to think of an actual moment where I realized I had feelings for him, but I can't pinpoint it. I feel like it's always been there in the back of my mind.

"We started hanging out a bit more outside of work after the divorce, but–"

Her eyes grow wide. "You've been seeing each other for THAT long?"

"Ohh no no no… I needed a place to crash a couple of nights during the divorce when Sean was still here. Things weren't very civilized in the end, and I didn't really have any other place to go." I pause briefly and take a deep breath. "So we just starting spending time together outside of work. It was weeks before we both admitted that there was something there… and even then we didn't really do anything about it."

She nods quietly, and purses her lips like she's choosing her next question carefully.

"So are you guys dating now?"

"I don't know what we are to be honest. The term 'dating' makes me feel like I'm still in my twenties. We're not really labeling anything, we're just kind of seeing what happens."

"So it's not serious?"

"No of course it is, I mean we're not just fooling around… we're serious about each other but we also both understand that we come with a lot of baggage." I feel a little guilty alluding to her mom's murder, but it's the truth. "We're both still recovering from shit in the past and don't want to jump into something we're not ready for."

"So you two… haven't um, haven't had uhh…" She trails off, unable to ask the question.

One part embarrassed and two parts shocked, I shake my head at her personal question. "No… um, we haven't."

She laughs nervously and gets up from her chair. "I can't believe I just asked you that. I'm sorry."

"It's okay." I bow my head slightly, avoiding her eyes. I can't believe she just asked me that either.

"I should probably go." She looks around the room, like she's making sure no one was listening to our conversation.

"This is weird, isn't it?"

She gives me a lopsided smile and is quick to reply. "Yep, a little bit."

I sigh. "You should really talk to Walt about this."

"I will if I don't die of embarrassment after this conversation."

"It's okay," I assure her. I'm positive that I'm just as mortified as she is.

"I'm going to go find Henry and tell him you're here for your food."

"Okay, thanks."

"Tell my dad I'll call him this afternoon," she says as she walks towards the kitchen.

I sit and stare at my shoes for a couple minutes until Henry comes out with our food. He's smirking slightly, which tells me that Cady told him about our conversation. She also doesn't come back out with him, so I assume she's hiding in the kitchen. He sets the bags of food on the bar top and grins back at me.

"It sounds like that went well."

I laugh. "I told Walt that conversation needed to come from him. I tried to tell her that too but she wouldn't drop it."

He nods his head in understanding. "She just wants answers."

"I know, and she can have them… from Walt."

He smiles.

"Speaking of Walt, I need to go yell at him."

"Let me know if you need back up. I am on your side on this one."

"Thanks," I snicker.

I head back to the station and distribute the food to the boys and Ruby before heading back to Walt's office. I place his food in front of him as he studies a folder of papers in front of him.

"Thank you."

"Mmhmm," I mutter as I close his office door and take a seat in the chair in front of his desk.

"How's the Pony?" He says this without looking up from the paper he's reading.

I pull my feet up onto his desk and slouch in my chair. "Pretty eventful, actually."

"Yeah?" He keeps his head down.

"Yeah you shoulda been there."

He nods, "Uhh huh." He jots something down on the paper and circles it.

"No, you _really_ shoulda been there."

This catches his attention and he puts down his pen and paper. "What happened?"

"Oh, I had a nice conversation with that lovely daughter of yours."

He raises an eyebrow. "What'd she have to say?"

"Oh you know, the usual... what's goin' on? How's my dad? Have you two had sex yet?"

His eyes widen. "She did not," he scoffs as he shifts in his chair.

"Oh, she did."

He's quiet for a few moments. "What did you tell her?"

"I said that we hadn't."

"Why did you say that? It's none of her business."

"I told her no because it's the truth, Walt. It was weird of her to even ask but I couldn't exactly tell her to mind her own business."

"Yes, you could have."

I fold my hands across my chest. "I'm not going to sit here and argue about how I handled a conversation that I shouldn't have had to have in the first place. I told you that you needed to tell Cady about us and you didn't, so of course she's curious and takes the opportunity to corner me at the Pony."

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "What am I supposed to say to her?"

"I don't know, just be honest. It's a weird situation, Walt. The age difference has never been an issue for me, but I have to tell ya, it was definitely awkward talking to Cady about us. It's weird for her which made it weird for me."

He's about to open his mouth to speak when Ruby peeks her head in the door.

"Walter, Cady is on line one for you." She says this quickly and then is gone.

I grin over at him, and he sighs again.

I get up and walk around to where he's sitting, and lean up against the edge of the desk. "It will be fine," I say as I run a hand through his hair.

"I don't think she actually has a problem with us being together, Walt. I think she's suspected that we had feelings for each other for awhile now, so she's not in shock or anything. I'm sure it's the age difference that she's not sure about and it's totally understandable if it's weird for her."

He nods but he stays silent.

"Babe, just talk to her."

He looks up at me.

"Babe?"

I smile and lean down to kiss him lightly. "Yes, babe… talk to your daughter."

I turn to leave and on my way out I pick up the phone on his desk and hold it up to his ear. He glares up at me, but I know he's not mad. Deep down he knows this is a conversation that he needs to have.


	18. Moment 18

**_Here's the next moment for you guys. I've been stuck on this one for awhile, so you'll have to let me know how you like it!_**

* * *

**Walt**

"So…" Cady stalls as she sips on her iced tea.

She's been over here for an hour already and we've both been avoiding the topic at hand. I don't even know where to start really, but if we both keep going at this rate we'll never get through the conversation. I stare out over the land and take a big gulp of my beer.

"I don't know where to start," I mutter nervously.

She smiles briefly. "How about the beginning?"

"That's the problem, I'm not even sure where the beginning is."

"When did things start between you two?"

I take a deep breath before diving in. "A couple months ago, but I think we both realized there was something there a while before that."

"How did you know? Did something happen?"

I shake my head no. "I think it was always there."

"Always?" her eyes narrow.

"In the back of my mind… but she was married." I choose not to elaborate on this. I feel a little ashamed that I felt something between us for so long before actually admitting it. I felt it when I was with Lizzie, and I think I felt it the whole time she was with Sean.

"And what made you two finally get together?"

Pausing for a moment, I take in her question. "Curiosity."

She nods, and I don't know if that means she's satisfied with my answers so far or if she just doesn't know what to say next. I let her sit in silence for a couple minutes before I break it.

"What do you think, Punk?"

She takes another drink of her iced tea before she speaks. "I don't know… there have been a number of times where I noticed something between you two, so it's not really a shock I guess. But it's still a little weird now that I know there's something there." She pauses briefly before adding, "Sorry."

"Don't be. It took a long time for me to be okay with it."

"Are you now?"

"I think so."

She nods and looks away from me for a moment. When she looks back at me, she's biting her lip and I can tell that she wants to say something else.

"You're worried about the age difference." I form this as a statement rather than a question because I know my daughter and I can almost guarantee that's what's on her mind.

She doesn't nod but just stares back at me. "Aren't you?"

"Of course I am."

She stays silent and waits for me to continue. I take a deep breath and search for the words to explain it to her. "I've lived a wonderful life so far Cady. If I died tomorrow, I would die a happy man. Your mother was the love of my life and she gave me so many memories; she gave me you, Punk. After she died, I never thought I would ever find anybody else…it never even dawned on me to look."

I pause for a moment and lose my train of thought. I'm not sure where I was going with that; I decide to try a different approach. "Vic has been through an awful lot for someone her age. So much that she's done denying herself any happiness… even if that means letting herself fall for an old man like me. Look Punk, I don't know if this thing will work out between us or not. I'd be lying if I told you that I was 100% confident that the age difference between us will never be an issue. I'll admit that I do notice the years between us, way more than she does… but I also know that this old man is tired of fighting. I simply don't have the energy to try and keep the feelings away."

I stop and wait for her to respond, and she doesn't for a few minutes. She takes a few sips of her iced tea as she stares out over the land as the sun begins to set. Eventually she looks over at me and simply says, "Alright."

"Alright?"

She nods slightly. "Alright."

I don't press the issue. I don't want to talk about my feelings any more than I have to. I nod my head in finality and take a drink of my beer. "Okay."

We sit in silence for a few more minutes before one of us has the courage to change the subject to something else. Obviously it's Cady who does this, and she takes the opportunity to tell me about what's been going on at work. No specifics on any case of course, but she still finds something to talk about. We sit out on the porch until it starts to get dark out and she decides to head home.

She gives me a kiss on the cheek and whispers, "I'm glad you're happy, Dad," in my ear as she leaves. After she's in her truck, she rolls down the window and yells at me. "Tell Vic I'm sorry for cornering her at the Pony."

I smile and nod. I'm not sure if she knows that Vic told me what she asked her, but I certainly wasn't going to bring it up. I stand there and watch her drive off and breathe out a big sigh of relief. I sure did get lucky with that daughter of mine. As I sit back down on the porch and finish my beer, I think about how many different ways that conversation could have gone wrong. Even if Cady isn't completely on board with this relationship, she's at least letting it go for now.

Letting things go for now is a Longmire specialty.

Once I finish my beer, I grab my keys, hop into the Bronco and start driving. When I pull up to Vic's, all of the lights appear to be off until I reach the front door and can see a lamp on in the living room and another faint light coming from her bedroom. Before knocking I decide to jiggle the door knob to see if it's open, which to my surprise it is. I open the door slightly and stick my head in.

"Vic?"

"I'm in here." She replies right away, her voice coming from her bedroom.

I step inside and take my boots off at the front door, locking it behind me. I walk into her bedroom to find her laying in bed reading a book by the lamp light. She looks up and smiles at me as I enter her room.

"Hey."

"Hey." I stand there and take her in for a few moments before I walk around to the other side of the bed. She eyes me carefully as I slip out of my shirt and strip down to my boxers before climbing under the covers next to her.

She leans down and kisses me sweetly.

"Did you leave the door open for me?"

"Maybe," she grins.

"How did you know I'd come by?"

She grins again, "I didn't. I just hoped."

I'm instantly glad that I came. The fact that she wanted me to come and I did makes me feel like we're on the same page. She sets her book down on the night stand and slumps down so her head is on her pillow but she's facing towards me.

"What did Cady say?"

"She said 'Alright."

"Alright?"

"Yep."

"Alright, what?"

"She asked a few questions, like when I realized there was something between us and when we actually started seeing each other. We talked about the age difference a little… and when I got done explaining my side of everything, she said "Alright."

"Alright," Vic says again.

"Yep."

She laughs lightly, "You Longmires sure are a bunch of heavy talkers."

I smile as I idly play with her fingers that are resting on my chest.. "Uh huh."

"What did you say about the age difference?" She asks curiously as she traces circles on my chest with her index finger.

"That I'd be lying if I said I was positive that the age difference between us would never be an issue."

She nods like she was expecting me to say something like that, but before she can respond I continue.

"But that I was tired of fighting it."

In response, she leans forward and pulls me into a kiss. It's slow and deep, like she's been waiting all day to do it. When she pulls back she keeps her hand at the side of my face. "Thank you for coming over tonight."

"Alright," I saw as I nod slightly.

She laughs and playfully punches me in the chest. She gives me one last kiss before she scoots closer to me and snuggles into my chest.

"Alright," she says softly before she drifts off to sleep.


	19. Moment 19

**Vic**

I'm sitting on the couch next to Walt, and my legs are stretched out across his lap. He's not paying attention to me, as he's desperately trying not to. His eyes are focused on the book in his hand, but I can tell he's not reading much because he only turns the page about once every five minutes. My left arm is stretched across the top of the couch with my hand resting at the back of his neck, gently playing with his hair. He hasn't said a word to me in the last half hour, and he's been fairly monosyllabic the whole day.

To be fair, he has a reason to be a little freaked out. Earlier this morning, I accidentally told him that I loved him.

Whoops.

It was a complete accident and I didn't even realize that I said it until I saw the 'deer in a headlight' look on his face. We were coming back from a lunch run to the Red Pony when it happened. We were pulling up to the station and had bags of lunch for everyone upstairs. Ruby's voice comes in on the radio telling Walt that Robbie Turner has called three times requesting that she send him out to look at his fence. He's insisting that the neighbor kids keep jumping his fence and trespassing on his land. He says that he can prove it this time, which is what he always says. Robbie calls every few weeks and it's the same thing every time. I tell Walt that I will go with him but he tells me just to head up since I have everyone's lunch; he'd go take care of it and would be back shortly. I asked if he was sure, to which he of course nodded his head yes. I leaned over, kissed him on the cheek and said, "Thanks, love you." I got out of the Bronco and looked back at him as I shut the door and saw the look on his face, immediately realizing what I just said.

"Shit… that slipped out, I wasn't planning that."

He looks away from me and scratches his face in classic Walt avoidance.

"Okay don't freak out, Walt. I just–" I'm cut off by Ruby's voice on the radio.

"Walter, are you heading out there? Robbie just called again."

He grabs the receiver, "Yep, on my way now." After he sets it down he looks over at me anxiously. "I gotta go."

I didn't want to argue with him or make him feel wrong for being weirded out by my accidental proclamation of love so I just nodded and stepped back from the truck. The whole rest of the day he kept himself busy and didn't have much time to chat.

I completely understand that he's a little jaded by this, but maybe I just need to take his mind off of what happened earlier. With my free hand, I grab the book out of his lap and close it before tossing it on the coffee table in front of us.

He looks over at me and sighs. "I was reading that."

"No you weren't."

"I–"

"No. You. Weren't." I annunciate each word carefully as I scoot closer to him and readjust my legs so I'm straddling his lap.

He looks back at me nervously, which is the last emotion that I want him to have. I run my fingers through his hair, and over the stubble on his jaw. He hasn't shaven in a few days, so his facial hair is at a perfect length; not too scruffy but not too short and prickly either. I lean forward and kiss him on the side of his face over by his ear.

"Vic."

"Shh."

He's opens his mouth to speak again when I silence him with a kiss. I catch him a little off guard and it takes him a moment to respond. He kisses me back, but I can tell that he's restrained. He's going through the motions but it's not like it usually is. I begin to unbutton his shirt and he pulls his face back.

"Wait, we–"

"Stop talking," I mutter as I take his lips in mine.

"We should talk." He tries to move himself on the couch but doesn't have much luck with me in his lap.

"I don't want to talk." I grab his face with both hands and pin him against the back of the couch.

He can tell now that I'm not backing down and he gets smart about it. He stops kissing me back. No matter what I do, he doesn't have a reaction. Do you know what it's like trying to kiss someone who literally is unresponsive to you? I give up after about thirty seconds and stare back at him.

"You barely mutter five words to me all day and now all of a sudden you wanna chat?"

"Yep."

Now he's just fucking with me. I sigh. "I'm sorry if what I said earlier freaked you out. It just slipped, it wasn't a conscious revelation or anything… I swear."

He stares back at me for a moment. "So you didn't mean it?"

I'm not sure if we're ready for this conversation, but since he's not letting it go I don't have much of a choice. I lean forward and rest my forehead on his. "I didn't say that… I just mean I didn't plan on saying it."

"What does that mean?"

I pull my head back so I can look at him. "It means that I hadn't really thought about it yet. I'm not a sixteen year old girl who lies in bed at night all giddy because she thinks she's in love and needs to tell someone. It just came out in that moment, Walt. I don't know what else to tell you."

I'm not lying when I say I haven't thought about it. I've been so comfortable around him lately, I don't seem to think about much. I'm finally to a place where I don't have any worries, I can concentrate on just living my life. He's looking back at me and I can tell that he doesn't know what to say.

"Please don't get all weird on me. I'm sorry about earlier, but it doesn't change anything between us. I don't want you to feel like there's any pressure on you to feel the same way or anything… I'm not going anywhere either way." I lean forward and kiss him on the tip of his nose.

He doesn't say anything but after a bit he nods in response.

"Good. Now will you please fucking kiss me back?"

I don't give him a chance to verbally answer before I mold my lips to his again. He's still unsure at first, but his mood quickly changes once I part his lips with my tongue, forcing a response. Testing my boundaries, I start to unbutton this shirt. When he doesn't stop me, I continue all the way to the bottom and gently tug it out from his waistband. Once I get it untucked, I break away so I can look at him. My eyes locked with his, I run my hands up and down his chest as he stares back at me in silence.

I lean forward and give him a brief kiss, before reaching down and pulling up my shirt over my head, letting it fall into my lap. Sitting in his lap wearing only jeans and a black bra, Walt has a look on his face that I've never seen before. He glances down for only a moment before his eyes dart back up to my face. I can't tell if he's still freaking out about the bomb I dropped or if he's just a normal nervous. If I had to guess I'd say that he hasn't been in this particular situation very many times.

"If you're not ready for this yet, that's okay."

He stares back at me like he wants to say something but like he can't actually form the words. His eyes leave mine and travel down my chest, bringing his hands up to my waist at the same time. He gently rubs his thumbs in circles over my stomach. Shivering slightly at the touch of his gruff hands, I take a deep breath. He continues in silence, never looking back up to meet my eyes, and without warning he leans forward and touches his lips to my chest. He starts at my breastbone and makes his way up. He kisses all the way up my neck and when I can't take it anymore I bend my face down to reach his. Not for long though, because the second after my fingers touch his waistband to undo his pants he pulls away from me.

I'm startled by his movement and immediately assume that I've pushed too far. In response, he slides us forward on the couch and just as I'm about to climb off of his lap, he reaches a hand back to push off against the couch and stands up to his feet. His other arm is gripped around my back and I have to grab his shoulders and wrap my legs around his waist in order not to fall to the ground.

I must have a confused look on my face because he softly whispers, "Not here." He carries me into the bedroom and gently places me down on the bed. I scoot backwards so my head is on the pillow as he crawls over top of me. His face hovers over mine and I'm consumed by his rugged scent. He stares down at me for a few moments in silence.

He doesn't say anything, but I can tell that he's nervous. As I work the buttons on his jeans, I lift my head up towards his and he meets me the rest of the way so his lips can meet mine. I continue to work on his pants as our kiss intensifies. I'm normally good at multitasking, but I can barely reach his waist since he's so damn tall. I break away and scoot down a little bit beneath him. As I attempt to get his pants down, he decides this is a good time to chat.

"Vic… I uhh… I'm sorry about how I reacted earlier."

"It's okay," I pant, slightly out of breath.

"No it's not…because I think I might lo–"

I snap my head up to look at him. "No."

He looks down at me a little stunned. I didn't mean to snap at him, I just don't want him to say something he doesn't actually mean. I bring my hands up to his face, gently rubbing his cheeks. "You don't have to say it now."

"But I–"

"I know how you feel, Walt. I can feel it, okay?" I reach up and give him a long kiss. When I pull away I look up at him in silence for a few moments. "Now will you please help me take off your pants?"


	20. Moment 20

**_So I know it's been a bit longer than normal in between moments, but I've been a little stuck. Okay, a lot stuck. I'm still not 100% happy with this one but I couldn't figure out how to fix it so I'm posting it anyway; not sure it's completely in canon so you'll have to let me know what you think. Also, towards the end Vic makes Walt listen to a song, and the lyrics are in italics and I do not own them. It's a song called 'Running' by James Bay, and I strongly encourage you to look it up and listen to it as you read :) and as always, let me know what you think!_**

* * *

**Walt**

When I open my eyes, it takes me a few moments to figure out where I am. I'm in my own bed, but I'm on the opposite side that I normally sleep on so everything is a bit backwards. I look over to the other side of the bed where Vic is sound sleep. She's on her stomach with her bare chest smushed against the bed, and she's under a sheet that only covers her lower half, it's barely covering her bottom. So much of her tan skin is exposed, and it looks so smooth I want to reach over and touch her; I would if I thought it wouldn't wake her. She's facing me and her head is barely on the pillow, with her hair covering half of her face.

She looks peaceful.

I'm not sure where we go from here, but I know there's no going back. I was so nervous last night, but Vic eased that feeling with grace and of course a little humor.

She begins to stir at some point, and when she opens her eyes she stares over at me for a few moments in silence and then she smiles. I smile back but I don't say anything. This is always my first reaction when there's so much that I want to say and don't know where to begin.

"Hey," she says softly.

"Hey." My voice comes out a lot scratchier than hers.

"How long have you been creepily staring at me?"

"I lost track." I'm not talking about this morning; I've been staring at her for years.

She smiles and rolls onto her side, bringing the sheet up to cover her chest. She sighs loudly and goes back to looking over at me in silence, and she doesn't speak for a couple of minutes.

"Do I dare ask what you are thinking about?"

I laugh nervously. "A lot of things."

"Care to share?" She prods as she folds her arms up underneath her pillow.

"Last night when we were talking…" I pause to clear my throat a little. "Right before we uhh, before we…"

"Had sex."

I nod nervously. Why is that so hard to say? "Yeah… you cut me off."

She stares back, unblinking. "Yes."

"Why? What did you mean when you said you could feel how I felt?"

"As much as I would love to hear you say those words, I didn't want you to say it too soon just because you felt obligated to say it."

"So you think I was just going to say it because you did?"

She nods. "I think that's part of it, but I also think you felt guilty because we were about to have sex."

I start to shake my head no but she cuts me off and continues. "You're still tentative around me, Walt. I don't think you one hundred percent know how you feel yet, and I think you felt a little guilty sleeping with me after I said I loved you and you didn't say it back."

Hearing her say this out loud makes me feel terrible. "I'm sorry."

"Hey…" she says as she scoots closer to me and places a hand on my chest. "I didn't mean it like that. I was the one that initiated everything last night, you have nothing to be sorry for. I know you, Walt. I knew going into last night that I loved you and that you weren't quite there yet. That's okay."

I look away from her eyes for a moment but she pulls me back.

"Hey, look at me. I didn't realize until yesterday that I loved you. It really did just slip, that's how comfortable I am with you. I know you're not sure how you feel yet, but I know you care about me, I can feel that. That's good enough for me right now, okay?"

I try to nod my head but I'm not sure it moves.

"Bottom line, Walt, I just like being with you… that's it. I don't care if you say those words any time soon. I want you to be sure."

I sigh. I want to be sure, too… but I want to be sure now.

She leans forward and places her forehead on my chest, simultaneously moving her hand underneath the sheet and resting it on my side. She's silent for a minute or so until she whispers into my chest. "Say something."

I want to tell her that I do think I love her, but she wants me to be sure… and I'm not, so I don't. Instead, I bow my head and kiss the hair on top of her head. Moving my hand to gently stroke her blond locks.

"You smell good."

She laughs and pulls her head back to she can see me. She grabs a chunk of her hair and brings it up to her nose. "I smell like you."

"Mmm."

She smiles at that, and lets go of her hair and slips her hand underneath the sheet and runs it gently up and down my side. "Last night was something else."

I laugh nervously, trying to remember every detail and ingrain it into my brain. The eagerness that she had to initiate the sex between us, and the willingness to take the lead when it was clear how nervous I was. And later, when she slowed things down and tried to savor every last second of the experience, clinging to me through it all.

"Yes it was."

She closes the distance between our faces and pulls me into a slow, lingering kiss. As she kisses me, she reaches her hand around and squeezes me right on my backside. I jump, slightly out of shock, which makes her laugh and break the kiss. She pulls her head back to look at me.

A devilish grin appears on her face as she mutters, "You wanna do it again?"

I'm one part turned on and two parts scared, as I'm not sure I can keep up with her. She must see the panic on my face because she laughs again.

"You're too easy, Walt. I'm kidding." She reaches up and gives me another quick kiss before rolling to the other side of the bed. She sits up and lets the sheet fall away from her, exposing her naked, beautiful form. As she reaches down to pick up a shirt from the floor, she glances back at me and catches me staring at her. She smiles coyly as she slips on my denim shirt and fastens each button carefully.

"Wanna make some breakfast?"

"Yep. I'm gonna take a quick shower and then I'll be out."

"Okay. If you take too long, I'm gonna come join you." She grins as she turns for the door.

I take a nice hot shower to ease my muscles. As much as I'd like to say that the age difference between me and Vic doesn't matter, I sure do think about it when it comes to physical activity. I'm definitely not in the same shape that I used to be, and it's not surprising that one night with Vic has my body feeling like I just ran a marathon. I stand under the hot water for a few minutes and let it massage my achy bones.

When I get out, I put on a pair of jeans and a grey t-shirt and head out to the kitchen. Vic's not in the kitchen but there's an empty pan on the stove and a half a pot of coffee on the counter. I head outside to find her on the porch.

"That was quick," I say as I sit across from her at the little homemade table I finally finished making a few weeks ago.

"Well all I could find were eggs and bread, so breakfast didn't take long." She smiles at me and pushes a mug of coffee across the table.

"Yeah… I've been meaning to get to the store."

"Mmhmm." She grins over at me as she takes a bite of her toast and I dig in to my eggs.

We sit in silence for several minutes as we eat our food and drink our coffee. Normally silence between us is a comfortable one, but this morning I can't help but feel like there's a giant elephant in the room. I don't know how to small talk with her after last night. When I finish my eggs I place my fork on my plate and look up to find her staring at me.

She's looking at me with an expression that I've never really seen on her before. She has this curious look on her face but also one that looks like she just learned all of my deepest, darkest secrets. She looks beautiful, so beautiful that I couldn't possibly deserve her.

"What's going on, Walt?"

"What do you mean?"

"I can see you freaking out right now."

I shake my head, in an attempt to hide the fact that she's exactly right. "I haven't said anything."

"I know. You like to think before you talk, I remember." She pauses and tilts her head at me. "Maybe I can help, tell me what you're thinking."

I sigh and look back at her skeptically.

"It's okay, whatever it is," she nods a reassuring smile.

I pause for a few more moments before I answer her. I force myself to make eye contact with her as I say it. "Did we make a mistake last night?"

She's quick to reply, and surprisingly she doesn't seem hurt by my question. She shrugs her shoulders and says, "I don't know. It doesn't feel like a mistake to me but it's hard to tell since it just happened. Ask me again in a few months."

This is definitely not the reaction I was thinking she would have, which just reiterates the fact that Vic isn't like every other woman.

"Not the response you were expecting?" She grins slightly.

"Not exactly."

She grabs her phone that's sitting on the table next to her and begins pushing buttons and scrolling through something. She leans back in her chair and props her feet up on the table, and I'm reminded that she's not wearing any pants and is only in her underwear and my shirt. She sets her phone down on the table and a few seconds later music starts playing.

"I want you to listen to this song," she says softly as she crosses her arms and closes her eyes. I think about doing the same and closing my eyes, but I can't take mine off of her face.

_**When my heart is ready to burst,_  
_When the world spins in reverse_  
_I'll keep running_  
_To the place where I belong_

_When you go, turn down the light_  
_No one's here to hold you in the night_  
_I'll keep running_  
_To the place where I belong_

_When you think you're on your own_  
_I'm still coming home_

_When our picture fades in the sun_  
_And all the colors blur in the one_  
_I'll keep running_  
_To the place where I belong_

_When you think you're on your own_  
_I'm still coming home_

_When your all gets blinded_  
_When you fold with the cards_  
_No, I'll never stop fighting_  
_To get to where you are_

_Wherever we go_  
_Wherever we go_  
_Wherever we go_  
_Wherever we go_  
_Wherever we go_  
_Wherever we go_

_When the lights are faded to black_  
_Only stars are guiding me back_  
_I'll keep running_  
_To the place I belong_

_When you think you're on your own_  
_I'm still coming home_  
_When you think you're on your own_  
_I'm still coming home**_

(**James Bay - Running**)

When the music stops playing, she opens her eyes and looks at me. "I don't know if this will work between us, Walt. I honestly don't… but it feels right to me. I finally feel like I'm home here. Here in Wyoming… here with you. I've made a lot of mistakes in the past, but I don't think you're one of them. I know you're skeptical, and maybe a little scared, and you can try to push me away because of that but I'll keep on running back to you. After everything that's happened, I'm determined to be happy."

I don't say anything for a minute. "I'm glad you decided to stay."

"In Wyoming, or the cabin?"

"Both."

She smiles lightly and gets up from her chair and walks around to me where she sits on my lap. She wraps her arms around my neck and rests her forehead on mine. "So you don't regret last night either?" She says almost in a whisper.

"I don't think so."

"I'm gonna make it my mission to convince you that this isn't a mistake. We're good together, Walt. You don't have to be on your own."

She leans down and kisses me slowly, and when she pulls away she rests her cheek against mine.

I wrap my arms around her as I let out a sigh and think about the lyrics to that song.

_When you think you're on your own, __I'm still coming home._


	21. Moment 21

_**Heyyyy friends... sorry it's been a while since my last update... I've been stumped on this one, and also busy so I haven't been able to devote much time to brainstorming. Here's a short one for ya, and I promise you won't have to wait that long for the next one. Drop by and leave a review and tell me you forgive me for making you wait :)**_

* * *

**Vic**

It's been about a week and a half since Walt and I had sex, and I'm trying real hard not to freak out about him freaking out. He's completely normal when it's just the two of us, although we haven't had sex again since that night. He has been a little odd when we're together at work, and I keep telling myself not to take it personally because let's face it, Walt can be an odd man.

I come into the office and find that he's beat me here again this morning. I didn't stay at his place last night or the night before, so we haven't been coming in together. We had dinner at the Pony last night but I had some laundry to do so I went home alone. I can tell he's not sure yet how to seamlessly switch from being friends to more than friends, so I'm trying to give him a little space.

The key word here is "trying."

I set my stuff down at my desk and say hi to Ruby as I fill up my mug of coffee before I wander into his office. I stop in the doorway and lean against the frame. I don't say anything but wait for him to look up at me.

"Good morning," he smiles lightly. God, he looks good.

"Morning," I smile back before taking a sip of my steaming hot coffee.

"How was your night last night?"

"Lonely." I answer honestly.

He begins to grin, but only slightly. "Did you finish all your laundry?"

"Yes."

"Good," he says as he nods his head.

"That means I'm free tonight."

He stares at me for a moment. "Yeah?"

"Mmhmm."

"Good to know." He smiles lightly and goes back to read the files on his desk.

I move from the doorway and around to his desk and sit on the edge right in front of him. He tries to act like he doesn't see me so I scoot a little closer to him and invade his space. He puts a hand lightly on my leg.

"Vic," he cautions.

"Yes, dear?"

"We're at work."

"I'm well aware of where we are."

"We need to be professional here, Vic."

I stare down at him, momentarily defeated. I set my coffee down next to me and turn around to yell towards the front office.

"Hey Ruby, I'm about to give the Sheriff a good morning kiss, is that appropriate?"

Without missing a beat, Ruby yells back. "Fine by me!"

I turn back to look at Walt and Ruby calls out again. "Tell him good morning from me, too!"

I can't help but laugh, and I see a smile forming on his lips before I lean down and kiss him. It's just a quick peck, and then I pull back and look at him for a moment. He looks a little frustrated with me, but he doesn't push me away. I lean down again and kiss him again, with a little more intensity this time.

When I pull away, I keep my face close to his as I take a deep breath.

"Good morning, Sheriff." I smile and rest my forehead against his; we stay like that for a minute.

When I pull back I can see that he has a little of my lip gloss on his face. I wipe it off with my finger.

"That was quite the good morning," he mutters.

"The first one was from Ruby. The tongue was from me." I wink at him, grab my coffee and strut back to my desk.

The rest of the morning is busy with a number of odd calls. Later, Ferg goes to the Busy Bee and grabs us all lunch. Walt and I eat ours in his office as we discuss theories on our current case.

After we're done eating, I come around to the side of his desk and gather up the trash and combine it all into one bag. "Thank you," he says as he hands me a wrapper.

"You're welcome." I look behind me down the hallway and can see Ruby at her desk. Ferg's out there too, and while I can't see him from here, I can at least see that he's not walking in here at the moment. I lean down towards Walt and give him a tender kiss. When I pull my head back, I run my hand through his hair as he stares up at me.

"Can I come over tonight?"

He sighs lightly. "Vic, we shouldn't be doing this here."

"What, making plans?"

"No, I mean the kissing."

"Oh relax, nobody was coming in here. I checked first."

"That's not point, it's unprofessional. What if someone else saw us? Someone from the public?"

I let out an exaggerated sigh. "They wouldn't, Walt. It's not like we were making out, it was one quick kiss."

"You kissed me this morning, too."

I grin as I remember. That was a good kiss.

"What are you gonna do, fire me?"

He almost rolls his eyes at me. "I'm being serious, Vic. If this is going to work, we need to keep things professional at the office. I don't want anybody thinking I'm playing favorites over here."

"Well I damn well better be your favorite, you've seen me naked." I grin and I see him blush instantly.

He stares back at me, momentarily at a loss for words.

"Look, I'm sorry. I'll try to limit my affection for you here at work." He starts to interrupt me, I'm sure to scold my use of the word 'try,' but I cut him off. "But do you know how many times I've wanted to kiss you this past year? …There's been something between us for a long time but since I was married, neither of us could act on it. So I'm sorry, but I am done denying myself happiness, Walt. If I feel like kissing you, I'm going to kiss you."

He looks back at me, scrunches his mouth up on one side as he considers me. He's quiet for a few moments, and then he simply says, "You're stubborn."

This makes me smile, and I have to hold myself back because I really want to kiss him again. "Get used to it."

I grab the bag of trash and head for my desk. Once I get to the doorway of his office I stop and turn back towards him. "Don't make any plans tonight, I'm coming over." I don't wait for a response before I turn and start walking away from him.

"You're also bossy," he calls out after me.

"You're gonna have to get used that, too," I reply without turning back.


	22. Moment 22

_**Here you go, friends! Let me know what you think :)**_

* * *

**Walt**

Vic and I are sitting on the porch outside drinking a few beers when her phone rings.

"Ugh, sorry." She says after she checks the screen. "I have to take this, it's my mom."

"That's okay, go ahead." I watch her as she shifts in her chair and takes a deep breath. I've never met Vic's mother , but I get the impression that they don't always see eye to eye.

"Hi, mom… I'm good. Happy Mother's Day, what have you been doing?… "

My heart sinks a little. I had no idea it was Mother's Day today, Cady didn't mention it at all when I met her yesterday for lunch.

"Yeah.. well that sounds fun. Is that what you were doing when I called this morning?… Good, I'm glad everyone is taking care of you today… Good, I'm glad you liked them. I was wondering if they would get there on time… Yeah, I wish I could be there, too…" She looks over at me and shakes her head.

"Oh… alright. Well have a good rest of the day, tell everyone hi for me… Yep, love you, too… Bye."

She sets her phone down in her lap. "Sorry, I called her this morning to tell her Happy Mother's Day but she didn't answer. My dad took her out shopping," she says with a laugh. "And then after that they met the rest of the family for lunch."

I nod my head, "Sounds like fun."

"Yeah…" she takes a sip of her beer and looks off towards the sunset. "I do miss them around holidays, but the rest of the time I don't mind being away."

I think I daze out for a minute because I'm brought back to reality with Vic saying my name and looking at me like I'm a little crazy.

"Walt, everything okay?"

"Yep, just a little tired."

She stares at me for a few moments and raises an eyebrow slightly. She downs the last few sips of her beer and sets it down before getting up. When she walks over to me she sits on the arm of my chair, stretching her legs across my lap. After placing a kiss right on my temple she rests her head against mine.

"You didn't know it was Mother's Day, did you?" Her voice is soft and gentle, and I should have known she'd be able to read my mind.

I sigh. "No."

Her hand that's resting on my chest begins to rub gently back and forth. "Do you wanna talk about it?"

I shrug my shoulders. "I wonder why Cady didn't mention it at all when I saw her yesterday."

"Maybe she doesn't know either."

I shake my head no. "She knows. Cady doesn't miss anything."

Vic is quiet for a minute, and her breath against my face relaxes me a little. "I hope it's not because of me."

I hope it's not either, but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't think she had something to do with it. I stay quiet because I don't think it's necessary to say this out loud. I wrap my arm around her waist instead and pull her close to me.

We sit like this for a couple of minutes in silence, just listening to each other breathe. I'm actually starting to doze off when I hear a car pull up.

Cady.

As soon as Vic recognizes Cady's car she immediately shifts her position on the arm of the chair. She doesn't get up from my chair, but rather she separates herself from me a little.

Cady parks her car and gets steps out, standing between the car and car door as she rests an arm on the hood.

"Hey, Punk."

"What are you guys doing?"

"Nothing, just enjoying the weather."

She looks from me to Vic and then back to me again. "Am I interrupting? I didn't really need anything I just thought I'd stop by and say hi."

Vic speaks up this time. "No you're not interrupting anything, I was actually getting ready to leave."

I look up at Vic and cock my head a little, trying to tell her with my eyes that she doesn't have to do that.

"It's okay," she says softly, so only I can hear.

She gets up from my chair and grabs her cell phone and keys from the arm of the other chair before turning back to me. She doesn't look mad or anything, actually the opposite.

"Just call me later." She says softly before leaning down and giving me a kiss.

She walks to her truck as Cady makes her way up to the porch. When they pass each other, they're close enough that Cady reaches out a hand to grab Vic's. Vic stops and turns towards her and they exchange a few words that I can't hear. A moment later Vic lightly pats Cady on the shoulder and then continues on to her truck. She gives me a slight wave as she drives off.

...

I feel bad that Vic left so suddenly, which is why several hours later I find myself pulling up to her house just after dark. I can see a couple lights still on through the window, and it doesn't take her long to answer the door after I knock.

She seems a little surprised to see me, but she doesn't say anything about my showing up unannounced. She moves to the side to allow room for me to come inside.

"How's Cady?"

"She's okay. We took the horses for a ride."

She nods silently and doesn't ask me to elaborate, for which I'm grateful. I don't really want to talk about us hanging out at the spot where I spread Martha's ashes, the spot where we got married. It's not that I don't want her to know, it's just that I think it should be something between me and Cady.

She leans back against the wall and folds her arms over her chest.

"What did she say to you before you left the cabin earlier?"

Her eyes don't leave mine as she speaks. "She told me that I didn't have to leave."

"And what did you say?"

"That holidays should be spent with family," she replies without missing a beat.

I slowly walk over to where she's standing and wrap my arms around her waist, pulling her away from the wall and towards me. She brings her hands up to my chest and stares up at me.

I mutter a soft "thank you" before capturing her lips with mine as I simultaneously pick her up and carry her into the bedroom. When I put her down she sits on the edge of the bed and stares up at me as I unbutton my shirt. She knows exactly where this is going but she doesn't lead this time. She just sits there and watches me. Even as I slip out of my jeans, her eyes don't leave mine. When I'm standing there in just my boxers, I lean down and gently press my lips to hers. She parts her lips immediately, inviting me in, and brings her hands up to my face. Her mouth is hungry but her hands are gentle.

We take our time with foreplay, something that we didn't do the first time around. I remove each article of clothing from her body one by one, taking time to caress the newly exposed skin. She continues to let me lead, and I'm surprised by how calm and vulnerable she is tonight.

When I finally enter her, she breathes a sigh of relief and cranes her neck up so she can kiss me. I settle into a slow and steady pace, not wanting this to be over before I have a chance to properly explore her.

With her arms wrapped around me and her hands clutching my back, she moans softly in my ear.

"Oh my God," she breathes in between kisses.

I move my lips to her neck and then down to her chest. Her chest heaves up and down as she tries to catch her breath. My tongue circles her navel as she runs her hands through my hair. I think she's ticklish because I feel her stomach shudder a little and then she pulls my head up back to hers. She reaches down and guides me back inside her, moaning softly at my touch.

Moments later she's digging her nails into my back as she cries, "mmm, right there."

I quicken my pace a little, which makes her cry even louder. "Oh my god, I love you."

This catches me off guard and I freeze and pull my head back a little from hers. Her eyes stare up at me as she realizes those three scary words that she let slip again, and I think she's about to open her mouth to apologize but she doesn't.

Instead she brings a hand up to the side of my face and just holds it there. I know I should say 'I love you' back, but I don't. I don't know why I can't say it. I bring my hand up to my face and rest it on top of hers, holding it there for a brief moment before I take hers and pin it to the bed. Intertwining our fingers, I press my lips back to hers and continue right where we left off.

We fall into a rhythm, rocking back and forth with each other. I don't stop until she shudders against me, with her legs wrapped around me and her heels and fingers digging into my back.

I pull myself off of her and sprawl out on my back, letting out a sigh of content. We both lie here and try to catch our breath.

After a couple of minutes she rolls over on her side and gazes back at me, a slight smile on her face. "It's about time."

Immediately thinking that she wasn't satisfied with my slow pace, I start to panic and wonder again if I'm in over my head. Finding out that I'm old fashioned, even in the bedroom, I'm sure is enough to make someone like Vic want to run in the other direction.

"Did I go too slow? Was that boring?"

She cocks her head and narrows her eyes at me. "What? Why do you say that?"

I don't respond, I'm too embarrassed. After a few seconds her eyes grow a little wide as she reads my mind. "Did you think I was criticizing your performance?" She pauses, gauging my reaction. "Walt, that's not what I meant. I just meant that it's about time we had sex again."

"Oh, uhh… okay, good." I look away, a little embarrassed.

"Hey, come here." She scoots a little closer to me and grabs my hand in hers. "That was amazing."

"Yeah?"

She nods. "Yeah. It was for me at least… Come on, don't go getting all self conscious on me. Where's my big and strong, sexy and confident sheriff?"

I scoff.

"Come here." She pulls my head forward and kisses me, pulling on my bottom lip before she slips her tongue in. Just when I start to feel myself getting excited again she pulls away. She keeps her head close enough so that I can see her face and still feel her breath on my cheek.

"I meant what I said earlier… I do love you. That didn't just slip out again." She holds my head at the crook of my neck. "I need you to understand that."


	23. Moment 23

**Vic**

I'm standing in Walt's kitchen singing along to Dave Matthews Band as I wait for the coffee to brew, when I hear a knock at the door.

"Hello? Vic?"

I peer my head out from the kitchen to see Cady at the door staring at me.

"Can I come in?"

I wave my hands, "Of course. Come on in."

She smiles and looks towards the bedroom as she steps inside and I scramble to push pause on the music blaring through my phone.

"Walt's in the shower I think."

"Okay." She bites her lip and I can tell she wants to say something.

"Is everything okay?"

She nods, "Yeah… hey thanks for last weekend, letting me spend Mother's Day with my dad really meant a lot."

"Absolutely, no thanks necessary."

"Did he tell you what we did?"

I shake my head no. I think Walt wants to keep certain things between him and Cady, which I understand, but if this relationship is going to work Martha's name can't be off limits. "No, he didn't… but I assume you went out to your mom's spot?"

She nods. "Yeah."

"That's what I figured, but he didn't say for sure and I didn't want to pry." I pause for a moment and gauge her reaction before I continue. "I think he figures that talking about her would make me uncomfortable."

"And it doesn't?"

I shrug. "Not really. She'll always be a part of you guys, as she should be, she's your mom. How could I not be okay with that?"

She smiles at my rhetorical question and we stand in silence for a few moments, the coffee maker rattling in the background.

"So… Did my dad forget about our breakfast plans?"

I laugh. "Uhh, wellll… he didn't mention it, so he either forgot or thought it would be a fun surprise not to tell me." I laugh again.

With perfect timing, Walt calls out from the bedroom. "Is the coffee ready?"

I check the coffee pot and see that it's full. "Yeah," I call back.

"How about I make us some breakfast?" I'm about to answer when he continues. "I'm not used to all this physical activity, I'm starving."

I have to stifle a laugh, and I glance at Cady who cringes slightly. I mouth 'sorry' to her.

"Hey, maybe you should come out here before you continue talking!"

"What?" He yells back.

"Just get out here!" I look over at Cady who's now actually starting to laugh. Relieved that she's not completely mortified, I pull a few mugs out of the cupboard and begin pouring the coffee.

"Maybe you should go in there and make sure he doesn't come out naked," she commands urgently.

I laugh at her request, but she does have a point. That would probably traumatize me if I were in her position.

I walk to the bedroom and find Walt standing there in a towel. "What were you yelling about?"

I saunter over to him and lean up on my tip toes to kiss him, and at the same time reaching my arms around him to grab his ass.

"I said to come out to the kitchen," I reach up to kiss him again, "and put some clothes on before you do."

He grows serious, "Why is that?"

"Because your daughter is here," I say as I give his ass a squeeze before turning and heading towards the door.

"For breakfast." He says as he suddenly remembers their plans.

"Yep," I say as I pause with my hand on the doorknob and look back at him.

He stares at me for another moment before his eyes narrow. "So, uhh… she heard me when I-"

I cut him off and nod my head and laugh out another, "Yep."

He embarrassingly looks away. "Great."

"She only seemed a little mortified, she'll be fine." I pause slightly before continuing. "She's trying," I offer with an encouraging smile.

He nods and then reaches for his pants.

"Come out once you're dressed," I say as I begin to turn the door knob to leave.

"Uhh.."

"What?" I stop and turn back to him.

He me up and down for a moment before he answers. "Don't you think you should put on pants, too?"

I look down and see that he's right, and I am in fact pant less. I'm wearing underwear at least, but then I'm only wearing one of Walt's denim shirts with the sleeves rolled up. "Shit."

He laughs as I scramble into a pair of jeans and rush out of the door.

"Cady, why didn't you tell me to put on some damn pants? I'm sorry, I didn't even realize."

She laughs. "We're almost the same age, Vic. I can handle seeing you with no pants on."

Damn.

I must make a face because she quickly backtracks.

"No, no I didn't mean it like that!" She waves her hands out in front of her. "I just meant that you're a woman and a friend so it doesn't bother me, that's why I didn't say anything. I'd just rather not see my dad naked."

I try to smile through the awkwardness.

"I'm sorry," she tries again.

"It's okay… I mean you're technically right." I try to brush it off.

Walt comes out of the bedroom with perfect timing. "Good morning, Punk. I'm sorry I forgot about breakfast." He gives her a kiss on the cheek before heading to the counter for coffee.

"It's okay. Did you guys eat already?"

I glance at Walt, who glances at me and then back to Cady. "Nope," he offers.

"Do you guys wanna go to the Bee and grab some food?" She looks to Walt first, who looks to me which causes Cady to look at me.

"Why are you looking at me? You're the ones who had plans, I would just be the third wheel."

"You're not the third wheel, you're coming." She states matter-of-fact.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course," she gives me a big smile and it's hard to tell if she's genuine or if she's just trying really hard for this not to be awkward. Either way, she is trying so I'm thankful for that.

"Okay, good because I'm starving."

We get ready to leave and when we get outside I remember that Walt's Bronco is in the shop. I run back inside for my keys and throw them to Walt.

"We can take my truck, but you drive."

I climb into the middle seat and Cady settles in beside me. As we're driving, I instinctively rest one of my hands in Walt's lap. Once I realize it, I think about pulling it away but then change my mind. Maybe Cady's right and I'm not the third wheel. If we're ever going to get over the awkwardness of our relationship, she needs to be around us as a couple. Also, I don't want to have to censor myself around her.

We drive in silence for only about a minute until I can't take it anymore. "Well, this is going to be fun," I blurt out cheerfully.

I suck at censoring myself.


End file.
